Khaleda Zia’s legal woes end

BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia is now cleared of all the 37 cases filed during the 2007 caretaker government and the Awami League regime as the court acquitted her in the Niko graft case yesterday.

“There is no case pending against Khaleda Zia,” Zakir Hossain Bhuiyan, one of her defence lawyers, told The Daily Star.

Yesterday, Judge Md Rabiul Alam of the Special Judge’s Court-4 of Dhaka cleared Khaleda, also the former prime minister, and seven others in the case lodged by the Anti-Corruption Commission in 2007.

The 79-year-old BNP chief — currently in London for treatment — was represented by her lawyer Mohammad Ziauddin Zia at the court.

Khaleda and other accused had no mala fide intention during the time of agreement between the government and Niko, a Canadian oil and gas exploration company, the judge observed in the verdict.

“The case was dragged onto politically harass Begum Khaleda Zia and the other accused. Khaleda Zia did not commit any corruption. She did not even misuse her power,” the court also said.

“Two cases were filed against former prime ministers — Sheikh Hasina and Khaleda Zia — on the same day in December 2007. However, the case against Sheikh Hasina was quashed after she assumed power in 2009, while the case against Khaleda Zia continued throughout the entire Awami League regime,” said the judgement.

“During the investigation, former Dhaka Club president Selim Bhuiyan, an accused in the case, gave a confessional statement before a magistrate. He was forced to make the statement…,” it said.

“Selim was tortured during remand and admitted to Rajarbagh Police Lines Hospital for treatment,” the verdict mentioned.

The court observed, “His confessional statement was not voluntary; it was done to implicate Khaleda Zia and others in the case.”

The seven other accused are Giasuddin Al Mamun, BNP acting chairman Tarique Rahman’s close friend; Khondaker Shahidul Islam, former acting secretary for energy ministry; CM Yusuf Hussain, ex-senior assistant secretary; Kamal Uddin Siddiqui, former principal secretary; Mir Moynul Haque, ex-general manager of Bangladesh Petroleum Exploration and Production Company Limited (BAPEX); Kashem Sharif, former president of Niko Resources (Bangladesh) Ltd, and Selim Bhuiyan.

Of them, Kamal, Moynul, and Kashem have been absconding since the case was filed.

On March 19, 2023, the court framed charges against Khaleda and the seven.

The ACC filed the case in December 2007, accusing Khaleda and several others of abusing power to award a gas exploration and extraction deal to Niko when she was the prime minister between 2001 and 2006.

The names of former law minister Moudud Ahmed, former state minister for energy AKM Mosharraf Hossain and ex-BAPEX secretary Shafiur Rahman were dropped from the charges of case as they died.

After the acquittal order in the Niko graft case, Khaleda’s lawyer Masud Ahmed Talukder told reporters that they finally got justice from the court.

“The case was filed against the BNP chairperson just to harass her politically,” he said.

A day after the fall of the Sheikh Hasina-led government on August 5 last year amid a mass uprising, the president pardoned Khaleda in cases she had been punished during the AL rule.

She was acquitted in five defamation cases filed during the AL rule over derogatory remarks about the Liberation War, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, and Hasina on September 3 last year, and relieved of the charges in the Gatco graft case on October 24.

On October 30, the High Court scrapped 11 criminal cases, including one for sedition.

The HC on November 27 acquitted the BNP chief in the Zia Charitable Trust corruption case in which she was sentenced to seven years’ imprisonment by a lower court.

In the same day, she was relieved in the Barapukuria coalmine corruption case.

On January 15 this year, the Supreme Court acquitted Khaleda, Tarique, and four others of corruption charges in the Zia Orphanage Trust case.

The BNP chief landed in jail after she was sentenced to five years in a corruption case on February 8, 2018.

In April 2019, her health deteriorated. She was released from prison after 776 days on March 26, 2020, amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

The AL government temporarily released her with an executive order, suspending her sentence on the condition that she remains at her Gulshan home and does not leave the country. The term of her release had been extended several times.