Judge SM Mujibur Rahman of the First Additional Metropolitan Sessions Judge's Court set the date following a time petition filed by Ershad's lawyer.

The judge on February 6 adjourned the delivery of verdict in the case as he could not complete preparing the judgement.

In the petition, the lawyer mentioned that Ershad could not appear before the court yesterday due to illness. Therefore, he prayed for adjournment of the verdict in the case.

Earlier, the prosecution and the defence had completed their arguments and the court recorded statements of eight prosecution witnesses including the complainant and investigation officer (IO) of the case.

Around 16 years back, a team of customs officials held four people including two foreign nationals from Zia International Airport on July 17, 1990 during their attempt to smuggle around 3.6 kg of gold worth around Tk 2.5 crore into Bangladesh.

A smuggling case was filed with the Cantonment Police Station the same day against the four -- Bernhard Rudiger of Germany, David Anthony Chalmar Chaker of England, then manager of the Zia International Airport Major (retd) Ashraf Uddin Sekender and Abu Taher, an airport security guard.

During the investigation, the IO found evidence of Ershad's involvement in the smuggling and his name was included in the charge sheet on August 31, 1991.