Khaleda files bail petition

BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia yesterday sought bail from the High Court for the second time in the Zia Charitable Trust corruption case, in which she has been sentenced to seven years’ imprisonment by a lower court.

Khaleda yesterday submitted a bail petition to the HC through her lawyer Barrister Kayser Kamal, saying that she is seriously ill and is now hospitalised, as she has been suffering from different health complications.

In the bail petition, Khaleda also urged the High Court to consider her bail on some other grounds -- including that she is a 74-year-old woman and the chief of BNP -- the largest political party; she was a three-time prime minister; and also the jail sentence handed down by the trial court is short, Kayser Kamal told The Daily Star.

The lawyer also said the HC may hold hearing on the petition next Sunday.

On July 31, the HC rejected a bail petition of Khaleda Zia in the same case, considering the gravity of the offense mentioned in the case, and some other issues.

“We have gone through the impugned judgement and order of conviction and sentence, but did not notice any apparent or glaring infirmity in those,” the HC bench of Justice Obaidul Hassan and Justice SM Kuddus Zaman bench had said in the order .

The Anti-Corruption Commission filed the case with Tejgaon Police Station on August 8, 2011. On October 29 last year, a special court in Dhaka convicted Khaleda in the case and sentenced her to seven years’ imprisonment in her absence.

The BNP chief is now in jail, after being sentenced to five years’ imprisonment in the Zia Orphanage Trust graft case on February 8.

The HC on October 30 last year enhanced her punishment to 10 years in Zia Orphanage Trust corruption case after dismissing her appeal.