Court set up inside jail, security measures beefed up

Staff Correspondent: Security measures have been beefed up in and around central jail area in Old Dhaka's Nazimuddin Road over setting up a makeshift court there for the trial of BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia in Zia Charitable Trust graft case.

Additional police have been deployed in the area.

The law ministry issued a gazette yesterday, saying the proceedings in the Zia Charitable Trust case would now be held at the old Dhaka central jail on Nazimuddin Road. The decision was made taking Khaleda's security into consideration.

Previously, the trial proceedings in the corruption case have taken place at a makeshift court in Bakshibazar area.

The trial proceedings in the graft case are being delayed as jail authorities cannot produce Khaleda Zia before the court due to her illness. For this, I appealed to the court to start the case procedures at a makeshift court in old central jail where the BNP chief is imprisoned, said Public Prosecutor Mosharraf Hossain Kajal, also lawyer for Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC).

Meanwhile, Khaleda's lawyers cited the move as 'contrary to law'.

On February 8, BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia was jailed for five years in Zia Orphanage Trust corruption case and sent to old central jail on Nazimuddin road.

Judge Md Akhtaruzzaman of Dhaka’s Fifth Special Judge’s Court delivered the verdict in the graft case filed by the Anti-Corruption Commission during the last army-backed caretaker government in 2008.

On August 8, 2011, the ACC filed the case against the BNP chief and three others for misappropriating Tk3.15 crore from the Zia Charitable Trust Fund.

The others accused in the case are Khaleda’s former political secretary Harris Chowdhury, his former personal assistant Ziaul Islam Munna and former Dhaka City mayor Sadeque Hossain Khoka’s personal assistant Monirul Islam Khan.


risingbd/Dhaka/Sept 5, 2018/Maksud/AI