Khaleda to appear before court today
Tuesday, 15 January 2013
BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia appears before a Dhaka court on Tuesday in connection with the Zia Charitable Trust graft case.
Advocate Masud Ahmed Talukder, a lawyer for Khaleda, told the UNB that the BNP chief would appear in the Senior Special Judge's Court of Dhaka at 1.00 pm.
On her way to the court in the old part of the city, Khaleda Zia will use the opposition alliance's Tuesday's human wall route to rejuvenate the opposition activists.
The BNP-led 18-party alliance will arrange the human wall programme in the city and elsewhere in the country in protest against the misrule of the current regime.
On January 6, Judge Mohammad Zahurul Haque of the Senior Special Judge's Court fixed January 15 to hear the charge acceptance against Khaleda Zia and three others in the case filed by the Anti-corruption Commission (ACC), asking the opposition leader to appear before the court on the day.
Khaleda Zia did not turn up before the court on January 6 citing security grounds as the BNP-led 18-party alliance enforced a countrywide dawn-to-dusk hartal on the day protesting petroleum price hike.
The court deferred the charge acceptance hearing 10 times since March 18 last year as Khaleda Zia skipped the hearings.
Begum Zia last appeared before the court on February 2 last year when she secured a permanent bail in the graft case.
Three other accused in the case are Khaleda Zia's former political secretary Harris Chowdhury, her former assistant personal secretary Ziaul Islam Munna, and Manirul Islam Khan, former personal secretary of mayor of undivided Dhaka City Corporation Sadeque Hossain Khoka.
Of the accused, Harris Chowdhury left the country in 2007 and has been staying abroad since then. He was mentioned in the charge sheet as an absconding accused. Ziaul and Monirul were now on bail.
On August 8, 2011, the ACC filed the case with Tejgaon thana accusing the four, including Khaleda Zia of abusing power in raising funds for the trust from unknown sources.
ACC deputy director Harunur Rashid, also investigation officer of the case, pressed charges against the accused on January 16, 2012.
According to the case statement, a 42-katha land in the city's Kakrail area had been bought from a person, Suraiya Khanam, in January 2005 at Tk 65.2 million.
The ACC found that Tk 12.5 million of the total money was earned beyond the known sources of income of the Zia Charitable Trust.