The High Court today acquitted BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia in Zia Charitable Trust corruption case in which she was sentenced to seven years' imprisonment by a lower court. The HC scraped the trial court verdict that sentenced Khaleda and two others in the same case.
The HC bench of Justice AKM Asaduzzaman and Justice Syed Enayet Hossain delivered the judgement after holding hearing on separate appeals filed by the three challenging the trial court verdict that convicted and sentenced them in the case.
On November 3 this year, the HC bench allowed the BNP chairperson to prepare the paper books of the case at her own cost for moving the appeal.
The paper books, which contain all the details of a case, including trial proceedings, statements, evidence, verdicts and other documents, are needed for HC hearing of the appeal against any lower court verdict.
On April 30, 2019, another HC bench accepted Khaleda's appeal, challenging her conviction and imprisonment in the graft case and also stayed a portion of the lower court verdict that fined her Tk 10 lakh.
A Dhaka court, on October 29, 2018, convicted Khaleda and sentenced her to seven years imprisonment in the case.
The other three convicted accused were former PM Khaleda's then political secretary Harris Chowdhury (now dead), Harris Chowdhury's then private secretary Ziaul Islam Munna, private secretary to former mayor of the undivided Dhaka City Corporation Monirul Islam Khan.
The Anti-Corruption Commission filed the case with Tejgaon Police Station on August 8, 2011, accusing four people, including Khaleda, of abusing power to raise funds for the trust from unknown sources.
Khaleda, who was under house arrest for the last five years, was released on August 6 this year after the president pardoned her punishments, a day after Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina resigned and fled the country.
On that day, President Mohammed Shahabuddin, exercising his power under Article 49 of the constitution, granted Khaleda clemency in two cases based on the law ministry's recommendation and ordered her release.
Khaleda, on February 8, 2018, was sent to the Old Dhaka Jail after a special court in Dhaka sentenced her to five years' imprisonment in the Zia Orphanage Trust corruption case. The High Court later doubled her five-year jail term.
In the same year, the same special court in Dhaka sentenced Khaleda to seven years in jail in the Zia Charitable Trust graft case.
Pro-BNP lawyers Md Bodroddoza Badal, Zakir Hossain Bhuiyan and Maksud Ullah were present for Khaleda while Deputy Attorney General Md Jashim Sarker and lawyer Ashif Hassan represented the state and ACC respectively during today's hearing.
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