Khaleda granted bail in last two cases
The High Court (HC) yesterday granted three months' ad interim bail to detained BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia in Gatco and Niko graft cases.
With yesterday's, the former prime minister has obtained bail in all four cases against her, filed by the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC).
According to Khaleda's counsels, now there is no legal bar to her release.
Additional Attorney General (AAG) Mansur Habib however said the ACC would appeal against the bail orders.
The anti-graft body yesterday already filed two petitions with the Supreme Court (SC) for stay on the bail she was granted last month in Zia Orphanage Trust and Barapukuria coalmine cases.
The BNP chief's lawyer Rafiqul Islam Mia said they hope she will be freed within 24 hours.
“The court orders today prove she is innocent. As she wanted all along, she is going to be released through a legal process, not through the backdoor."
Allowing Khaleda interim bail, the HC vacation bench of Justice Mirza Hussain Haider and Justice Mamnoon Rahman directed the ACC and the government to explain why the petitioner should not be granted regular bail.
Referring to securing bail in all cases, Khaleda's counsel Khandker Mahbubuddin Ahmed said it is a “victory in their long legal battle”.
Rafique-ul Huq, another counsel for the petitioner, said the government has in fact violated human rights and the rule of law by arresting former prime ministers Khaleda Zia and Sheikh Hasina.
"Hasina is the daughter of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and Khaleda the widow of Shaheed President Ziaur Rahman.
“I've been fighting the legal battles for them to establish the rule of law. Awami League or BNP should not be brought here to confuse the issue," he observed.
Asked about Commerce Adviser Hossain Zillur Rahman's comment earlier that the “government would not oppose if Khaleda files bail petitions”, Huq said the BNP chairperson was given bail on legal points amid strong opposition from the ACC counsels.
"An adviser should not have made this sort of remarks about court proceedings," he added.
Earlier in the day, during hearing on the bail petitions, Huq told the court that the cases were filed to have his client disqualified from the next general election.
He said, "The first information report (FIR) of the Gatco case says the accused are responsible for a Tk 1,000 crore loss to the state coffers, but the charge sheet says the amount is Tk 14 crore."
The ACC filed the case on September 2 last year on charges of graft in awarding Global Agro Trade (Pvt) Co Ltd (Gatco) a contract for container management at Dhaka and Chittagong inland depots.
The following day she was arrested at her cantonment residence.
The defendant's lawyer also contended that Gatco won the contract as the lowest bidder, and there was no graft or irregularity involved.
Huq said Saadat Hussain, the then cabinet secretary and now chairman of Bangladesh Public Service Commission (PSC), headed the technical committee regarding the contract, and so he should have been made the principal accused.
"No charge has been brought against Saadat Hussain. But former ministers have been made accused so they could be harassed politically. Most of the accused including M Saifur Rahman, Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan, M Shamsul Islam and MK Anwar have been granted bail in this case," he said.
Khandker Mahbubuddin Ahmed and Rafiqul Islam Mia petitioned the court to grant Khaleda bail in Niko graft case on the same grounds that Huq sought bail for her in the Gatco case.
The Niko case was filed on December 9 last year. The charge is abuse of power in awarding a gas exploration and extraction deal to Canadian company Niko.
"The government awarded the deal to Niko in full compliance with the rules of business," Mia said in his submissions to the court yesterday.
In opposition to the bail prayers, ACC counsel Abdul Aziz Khan argued that the HC cannot give an accused bail in a case filed under the Emergency Power Rules.
He also lamented that the HC has been granting bails to the accused at will. Incensed at the remark, the court asked the bench officers to write down an order against Aziz.
However, no contempt rule was issued against the ACC counsel as he was quick to apologise to the bench, said court sources.
CASES
The Gatco graft case is the first in a series of cases that the ACC filed against Khaleda.
Then came the Niko case. On May 5, the anti-graft body pressed charges in this case against 11 people.
Besides Khaleda, former law minister Moudud Ahmed and former state minister for energy AKM Mosharraf Hossain are among the charge-sheeted accused.
The HC in July this year stayed the proceedings of Gatco and Niko cases.
It also ordered the government and the ACC to explain why the case proceedings should not be quashed.
The ACC filed the Barapukuria coalmine case against Khaleda and 15 others on February 26. The other accused include 10 former ministers from BNP and Jamaat-e-Islami.
In the case, the 16 are charged with causing a loss of over Tk 158.71 crore to the public exchequer by awarding a Chinese company a production, management and maintenance contract through abuse of power.
The accused former ministers from BNP are M Saifur Rahman, Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan, Khandaker Mosharraf Hossain, M Shamsul Islam, MK Anwar, Aminul Haque, Altaf Hossain Choudhury and AKM Mosharraf Hossain, and from Jamaat are Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mojahid and Motiur Rahman Nizami.
On July 3, the ACC filed another case against Khaleda, her elder son Tarique Rahman and five others on charges of embezzling over Tk 2.10 crore meant for “Zia Orphanage Trust”.
All cases were later brought under the emergency rules. They remain pending with the special courts set up to try high-profile corruption cases.
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