Former Prime Minister and BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia moves to freedom from incarceration in an abrupt change of fortune as her political archrival relinquishes power amid student-people uprising.
She was released Tuesday by an executive order from her internment in the latest state of her imprisonment.
A press release from Bangabhaban said Khaleda Zia was set free following a meeting between President Mohammed Shahabuddin, the chiefs of the three services, leaders of different political parties, representatives of civil society and leaders of the Anti-Discrimination Student Movement.
"Apart from this, the process of releasing those who were detained from July 1 to August 5 during the Anti-Discrimination Student Movement has also been started," the press release reads.
Khaleda Zia was sent to the Old Dhaka Jail after a lower court sentenced her to five years' imprisonment in the Zia Orphanage Trust corruption case on February 8, 2018. Later, she was convicted in another corruption case the same year.
Amid the outbreak of coronavirus, the government temporarily freed Khaleda Zia from jail by executive order suspending her sentence on March 25, 2020, on condition that she will stay in her Gulshan house and not leave the country.
The 79-year-old former prime minister has long battled various ailments, including liver cirrhosis, arthritis, diabetes, and issues related to kidneys, lungs, heart, and eyes.
Since her conditional release from prison in 2020, the BNP chief, the widow of former President General Ziaur Rahman, has received medical care repeatedly at the hospital under the supervision of a medical board headed by cardiologist Prof Shahabuddin Talukder.
Doctors have kept advising to send her abroad since she was diagnosed with liver cirrhosis in November 2021. However, the government headed by Sheikh Hasina repeatedly denied the advice showing legal complications.
The immediate-past Prime Minister, Sheikh Hasina, fled the country Monday following the fall of her government in the face of a movement led by students and bolstered by general people.
Now the process of forming an interim government to run the country in the interregnum was on stream-and was expected to be done shortly as per aspirations of the stakeholders to stop the gap.
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