DHAKA: BNP Chairperson and former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia has been jailed for five years in the Zia Orphanage Trust graft case.

The Special Court-5 of Dhaka, set up on the premises of Madrasa-e-Alia Dhaka in city’s Bakshibazar area, delivered the verdict in much-talked-about case on Thursday (February 08).

Khaleda Zia’s elder son and BNP vice chairman Tarique Rahman and four others were given 10 years imprisonment in the case. The court fined Tk. 2.10 crore each.

Judge of special court Md Akhtaruzzaman began to read out the summary of the 632-page verdict at about 2:10 pm after Khaleda Zia reached the court at around 1:45pm.

The two other accused in the case, who were in detention, were produced before the court before Khaleda Zia reached the court.

Draped in a cream-colored saree and wearing a scarf, Khaleda Zia left her Gulshan residence at around 11:45am, to appear before the court.

She was escorted by a large number of law enforcers and leaders and activists of the party at the front.  As the motorcade reached Tejgaon Satrasta area, the crowd turns huge. Her motorcade witnessed a tension at Moghbazar and Kakrail where police lobbed tear gas shells to disperse activists.

On January 25, the special court fixed February 08 for delivering the verdict.

In July 2008, the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) filed the case accusing Khaleda Zia, her son BNP's senior vice chairman Tarique Rahman and four others for misappropriating over Tk 2.10 crore grant money for orphans.

On March 21 in 2014, a Dhaka court framed charges against the six accused in the case.

The four other accused are- former BNP MP Kazi Salimul Haque, Ziaur Rahman's nephew Mominur Rahman, former principal secretary to Prime Minister Kamal Uddin Siddique and businessman Sharfuddin Ahmed.

Khaleda Zia was on bail while Salimul Haque and Sharfuddin Ahmed were in jail. Tarique Rahman, Mominur and Kamal Siddique have been absconding.

BDST: 1435 HRS, FEB 8, 2018
EHJ