Tarique, family ready to leave country
BNP Senior Joint Secretary General Tarique Rahman may leave for treatment abroad anytime. Sources, however, said there are still some official procedures to be completed before his departure.
Despite widespread speculation last night that Tarique would leave the country on a Singapore Airlines flight, he is still at the Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University (BSMMU) hospital.
Ahmed Azam, Tarique's lawyer, told journalists that Tarique, his wife Zubaida Rahman and their daughter Jaima Rahman obtained German and British visas.
However, a source in the German embassy in Dhaka told The Daily Star that Tarique's family sought German visas yesterday and the process of their getting visas are underway.
Following last night's speculation, a high-ranking government official told The Daily Star that an executive order is required before Tarique can leave the country. The official requesting anonymity said the order is yet to be issued.
BNP sources said tickets have been booked for the Tarique family and his doctor Kazi Mazharul Islam Dolan with Singapore Airlines, Emirates and British Airways and they would leave for London in any of these airlines on completion of the remaining procedures.
Last night, journalists and activists of BNP and its front organisations started gathering in front of Block-D of BSMMU hospital on speculation that Tarique was about to leave the country.
Ahmed Azam told journalists at the hospital around 9:00pm that he was not sure if the BNP leader would leave the country that night.
BNP leaders claimed that before leaving the country, Tarique is expected to meet his mother, BNP chief Khaleda Zia, and visit the grave of his father, slain president Ziaur Rahman.
After 18 months of detention, Tarique was released on bail on September 3. Tarique has been staying at the BSMMU Hospital since his release.
Army-led joint forces arrested him at his mother's cantonment home on March 7, 2007.
Khaleda, accused in four graft cases and now detained in a makeshift prison on the Jatiya Sangsad Bhaban premises, was yesterday granted three months' bail in the Gatco and Niko corruption cases.
Earlier she obtained bail in two other corruption cases--the "Zia Orphanage Trust" fund embezzlement case and the Barapukuria Coalmine scam case.
Tarique's younger brother Arafat Rahman Koko was released by an executive order on July 17 and he is now undergoing treatment at a hospital in Bangkok. Koko was arrested along with his mother September 3 last year.
Meanwhile, a High Court bench stayed for three months the proceedings of the corruption case filed by the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) against Tarique's mother-in-law Syeda Iqbal Mand Banu.
The HC bench also issued a rule upon the ACC asking to show causes as to why the case should not be declared illegal.
The ACC filed the case accusing Syeda and Zubaida of amassing wealth illegally.
Their lawyer Mahbub Uddin Khokan had filed a writ with the HC challenging the legality of the case.
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