Khaleda wants indictment scrapped

BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia has moved the High Court for scrapping the indictment order in two cases of corruption. An HC bench of Justices Borhanuddin and KM Kamrul Kader is expected to hear her petition on Wednesday. The ‘review’ petition was filed on grounds the charges were not framed ‘properly’. On March 19, Dhaka’s Special Judge Basudev Roy indicted Khaleda Zia in the Zia Orphanage Trust and Zia Charitable Trust graft cases. The petition sought a rule on why the order framing the charges should not be revoked. It also sought a stay order on the proceedings of the indictment order until the rule pending trial. In 2008, Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) filed the Zia Orphanage Trust graft case against six including Khaleda and her son Tarique Rahman accusing them of pocketing Tk 21 million from funds meant for the trust, which reportedly came from a foreign bank. In 2011, the ACC sued the BNP chief and three others for pocketing Tk 31.5 million of the Zia Charitable Trust, according to bdnews24.com.