Khaleda Zia’s 7-year sentence in Zia Charitable Trust case quashed.
The High Court has allowed BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia’s appeal against her seven-year sentence in the Zia Charitable Trust corruption case. A High Court bench comprising Justice AKM Asaduzzaman and Justice Syed Enayet Hossain gave the verdict on Wednesday (November 27).
Senior lawyer Zainul Abedin and lawyer Barrister Kaiser Kamal heard the appeal in the court. Lawyer Asif Hasan appeared for the ACC. Later, Asif Hasan said that the court has allowed the appeal of Begum Khaleda Zia and three others. As a result, their sentences were quashed and they were acquitted.
The hearing on the appeal began on November 20. Earlier, permission was taken to prepare a paper book (case summary) for the appeal hearing on November 3.
That day, lawyers Zainul Abedin and Kaiser Kamal said, the BNP Chairperson’s sentence has been commuted in this case. Why is there an appeal hearing? We said, she (Khaleda Zia) respects the law. The President has commuted. There is a pardon there. Khaleda Zia does not believe in pardon. She did not commit a crime. She did not even ask for pardon. So he instructed the lawyers to deal with it legally.
On October 29, 2018, Judge Md. Akhtaruzzaman (currently a judge of the High Court Division) of Dhaka Special Judge’s Court-5, established in room number seven of the administrative building of the Central Jail in Old Dhaka, sentenced Khaleda Zia to seven years of rigorous imprisonment in the Zia Charitable Trust case.
At the same time, she was fined Tk 1 million and sentenced to another six months in prison in default. The same sentence was given to the other three accused in the case.
The other three convicted accused are former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia’s then political secretary Haris Chowdhury (deceased), Haris Chowdhury’s then private secretary Ziaul Islam Munna, and Monirul Islam Khan, private secretary to former mayor of the undivided Dhaka City Corporation, the late Sadeq Hossain Khoka. Haris Chowdhury absconded at that time. The remaining accused appealed to the High Court.
On August 8, 2010, a case was filed against the Zia Charitable Trust at Tejgaon Police Station. The Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) filed the case on charges of illegally transacting Tk 3.15 crore 43 lakh in the name of the trust. After the investigation, the ACC filed a chargesheet against Khaleda Zia and four others in the court in 2012.
On March 19, 2014, the court framed charges against Khaleda and four accused. After the testimony was completed, the ACC presented its arguments in the case and announced the verdict on October 19, 2018.
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