DHAKA: The appellate division of the Supreme Court cleared way for the lower court concerned to continue the trial in Zia Charitable Trust Corruption case in Khaleda Zia’s absence.

The appellate division on Monday (Oct 29) rejected a petition of Khaleda Zia challenging a High Court verdict that ordered to continue the trial in her absence. 

A seven-member bench headed by Chief Justice Syed Mahmud Hossain passed the order.

Khaleda Zia’s lawyer AJ Mohammad Ali and Zainul Abedin moved for her at the courtroom. Lawyer Khurshid Alam Khan moved for Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) and Attorney General Mahbubey Alam for the state. 

On September 20, Judge Md Akhtaruzzaman of Dhaka Special Judge Court-5 gave the order to continue the trial proceedings of the case against Khaleda Zia in her absence.

Khaleda Zia, however, submitted a revision petition against the verdict with the High Court on September 27.

On October 14,   HC cleared the way for the Dhaka Court concerned to continue the trial proceedings of the case against Khaleda Zia in her absence after rejecting her revision petition.

Later on, Khaleda filed the leave-to-appeal petition with the Supreme Court challenging the HC order.

ACC filed the graft case against Khaleda and three others with Tejgaon police station on August 8, 2010 for embezzling Tk3.15 crore from Zia Charitable Trust.

On February 8, a Dhaka court sentenced Khaleda Zia to five years imprisonment in Zia Orphanage Trust case. 

She was sent to Dhaka central jail following the verdict. Since then, she has been in jail

BDST: 1038 HRS, OCT 29, 2018

SI