HC scraps 11 cases against Khaleda

The High Court yesterday scrapped the trial proceedings of 11 cases filed against BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia.

The cases were filed in connection with arson, violence, and sedition with different police stations in Dhaka in 2015.

Yesterday, the HC bench of Justice AKM Asaduzzaman and Justice Syed Enayet Hossain delivered the verdicts after hearing 11 petitions filed by Khaleda in 2017 seeking to quash proceedings of the cases.

Khaleda's lawyers Zainul Abedin, Mahbub Uddin Khokon, Kayser Kamal, and Nasir Uddin Ahmed Ashim told reporters that trial proceedings of 10 arson and violence cases were cancelled on the grounds that their clients were not present at the places of occurrences mentioned in the cases.

Also, the HC quashed the sedition case against the BNP chief as the case was filed by a lawyer without taking permission from the home ministry, said Mahbub Uddin Khokon.

BNP's Legal Affairs Secretary Kayser Kamal told The Daily Star that former prime minister and BNP chief Khaleda has been accused in 37 cases lodged during the rule of Awami League government on various charges, including corruption, violence, arson, defamation, and sedition.

Of the cases, the HC yesterday scrapped 11 cases, the lower courts concerned in different districts earlier dismissed nine defamation cases and the president granted her clemency in two graft cases in which she was convicted and sentenced to imprisonment, the lawyer said, adding that she is on bail in the other cases.

Among other pro-BNP lawyers Ragib Rauf Chowdhury, Gazi Kamrul Islam Sajal, Mohammad Siddique Ullah Miah, Anisur Rahman Raihan, Zakir Hossain Bhuiyan, HM Shanjid Siddique, and Maksud Ullah were representing Khaleda in the court during the hearing on the petitions, while Deputy Attorney General Jasim Sarkar represented the state.

Khaleda, who was under house arrest for the last five years, was released on August 6 this year after the president pardoned her, a day after Hasina resigned and fled the country amid a mass uprising.

President Mohammed Shahabuddin, exercising his power under article 49 of the constitution, granted Khaleda clemency in the two cases based on the law ministry's recommendation and ordered her release.

On February 8, 2018, Khaleda was sent to the Old Dhaka Jail after a special court in Dhaka sentenced her to five years' imprisonment in the Zia Orphanage Trust corruption case. The High Court later doubled her five-year jail term.

In the same year, the same special court in Dhaka sentenced Khaleda to seven years in jail in the Zia Charitable Trust graft case.

Amid the coronavirus outbreak, the government temporarily freed Khaleda from jail through an executive order suspending her sentence on March 25, 2020, with the condition that she stay in her Gulshan house and not leave the country.