Graft case: Order on Khaleda’s bail petition now Monday

The High Court today deferred till 2:00pm tomorrow for passing necessary order regarding the bail petition of BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia in Zia Orphanage Trust corruption case in which she was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment.

The HC bench of Justice M Enayetur Rahim and Justice Shahidul Karim was scheduled to pass the order today. But the court deferred the date as the case record from the lower court is yet to reach to the HC.

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The bench said the 15-day time given by to the lower court for sending the case record will expire today. Therefore, the HC will wait and see whether the case record reaches to it, the court said.

However, the relevant section of the High Court around 1:00pm received the records of the Zia Orphanage Trust graft case from Mokarram Hossain, bench assistant of the Special Judge's Court-5 of Dhaka.

On March 8, the High Court fixed today for passing orders regarding the bail petition of Khaleda in the graft case.

On February 8, Special Judge's Court-5 of Dhaka sentenced Khaleda to five years' rigorous imprisonment after it had found her and five others guilty in the graft case.

The court also awarded jail sentences to Tarique Rahman, now the acting chairman of BNP, and four others for 10 years and fined them Tk 2.10 crore, saying that all the six convicts have to pay the fine in equal amounts.

The Anti-Corruption Commission filed the graft case with Ramna Police Station in July 2008, accusing the six of misappropriating over Tk 2.1 crore that came from a foreign bank as grants for orphans.