Khaleda files leave-to-appeal petition

BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia yesterday filed a leave-to-appeal petition with the Supreme Court challenging the High Court verdict that doubled her five year jail term in the Zia Orphanage Trust corruption case.

On October 30 last year, the High Court delivered the verdict, accepting ACC plea for revision that sought enhancement of the punishment handed down to her by a lower court in February 2018.  

In the petition filed yesterday, the former prime minister prayed to the apex court to stay her 10-year sentence and grant permanent bail in the case.

The Appellate Division of the Supreme Court is yet to set any date for hearing on the petition.

Talking to reporters, Barrister Kayser Kamal, a lawyer for Khaleda, said that HC has enhanced her punishment “unfairly, unjustly and unreasonably, as Khaleda has not committed any corruption”.

The HC delivered the verdict without adequately hearing the arguments from her lawyers, Barrister Kayser claimed.

Khaleda landed in jail on February last year, after a special court in Dhaka sentenced her to five years in jail in connection with the case.

Subsequently, a petition was filed by the Anti-Corruption Commission, following which the HC on October 30 increased the punishment to 10 years' imprisonment.

'SHOW KHALEDA ARRESTED FOR RELIGIOUS PROVOCATION'

A Dhaka court yesterday ordered Gulshan Police Station to show the BNP chief arrested in a case filed over religious provocation and spreading communal hatred, reports BSS.

Metropolitan Magistrate Ziaur Rahman passed the order and set April 24 for the authorities to submit a report in this regard.

Bench assistant Rakib Chowdhury said, the court also documented the bail plea submitted by Khaleda's counsel in the case.

Jananetri Parishad president AB Siddiqui filed the case on January 5, 2016 after the BNP chief made a speech at a function in the capital's Engineers Institution on December 21, 2015.