Verdict in Zia Charitable case against Khaleda Oct 29

A Dhaka court has fixed October 29 to deliver its verdict in Zia Charitable Trust corruption case against BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia and three others.

Md Akhtaruzzaman of Special Judges’ Court-5, temporarily set in the Old Dhaka Central Jail on Nazimuddin Road, set the date on Tuesday.  

The Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) filed the Zia Charitable Trust case at Tejgaon Police Station in August 2011. Khaleda and three others were accused of abusing power to raise funds from unknown sources for the trust.

The three other accused in the case are: Harris Chowdhury, political secretary of the then prime minister Khaleda between 2001 and 2006; Ziaul Islam Munna, assistant private secretary to Harris; and Monirul Islam Khan, APS to former Dhaka city mayor Sadeque Hossain Khoka.

On February 8, the same special court awarded Khaleda five years’ imprisonment in the Zia Orphanage Trust graft case and sentenced her elder son Tarique Rahman, now acting BNP chairman, and four others to 10 years’ imprisonment each.