SC upholds indictment against Khaleda

The Appellate Division of the Supreme Court (SC) has rejected BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia’s leave-to-appeal against High Court verdict allowing the framing of charges by trial court in Zia Charitable Trust corruption case. A five-member Appellate Division bench, headed by Chief Justice M Muzammel Hossain, dismissed the petition of the BNP chief upholding a lower court’s charge framing order against her in the graft case, filed by the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) on August 8, 2011. The four other judges’ are Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha, Justice Md Wahhab Miah, Justice Hasan Foez Siddique and Justice AHM Shamsuddin Chowdhury Manik. On Nov 25, the same bench dismissed two ‘leave to appeal’ petitions by Khaleda Zia over Zia Orphanage Trust case – another graft case filed against her, also by the ACC. On March 19, Judge Basudev Roy of Dhaka’s 3rd Metropolitan Special Judge’s Court had indicted Khaleda in both the cases, which were then at the deposition stage. Khandker Mahbub Hossain and AJ Mohammad Ali appeared for Khaleda Zia in Sunday’s hearing while Md Khurshid Alam Khan argued for the ACC. Barrister AKM Ehsanur Rahman, a lawyer for Khaleda, was also present in the court today.