Plea to adjourn Zia Orphanage, Zia Charitable Trust graft cases rejected
Judge of a Dhaka court, which is dealing with two corruption cases against BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia, left the courtroom this afternoon after her lawyers made derogatory remarks about the court in presence of the former premier.
Judge of a Dhaka court, which is dealing with two corruption cases against BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia, left the courtroom this afternoon after her lawyers made derogatory remarks about the court in presence of the former premier.
The incident took place after Judge Bashudev Roy of Special Judges Court-3 turned down petitions by lawyers of Khaleda, who was present before the court this time, for adjourning the hearing of charge framing in connection with Zia Orphanage and Zia Charitable Trust graft cases.
As the judge went to his chamber, a group of defence counsels informed the judge there that they would appeal against the rejection with the higher court.
The court plunged into a pandemonium as lawyers from both the defence and the prosecution started shouting at each other over the comments.
With hearing on charge framing into the two cases scheduled for today, Khaleda reached the court premises in Kotwali area at 1:05pm.
After appearing before the court, she submitted two adjournment petitions before the judge through her counsels.
After hearing from both the defence and prosecution for 25 minutes, the judge rejected the appeals.
The defence counsels then started making derogatory comments about the court prompting the judge to leave the courtroom around 1:40pm.
The prosecution and defence exchanged hot words and chanted slogans against each other.
Around 2:00pm, the defence counsels went the chamber of Judge Roy and submitted four separation petitions -- two for each of cases -- seeking permission for going to the higher court to review the rejection orders.
The judge is set to hear the petitions later in the day.
Khaleda was sitting inside the courtroom till 2:45pm when the report was filed.
On February 16, Judge (in-charge) Md Rezaul Islam of the court asked Khaleda to appear before the court today (March 19) after fixing the date for the charge framing hearing in the cases against the BNP chief and eight others.
So far, hearing of the two cases has been deferred 19 and 10 times respectively.
Khaleda was absent from the court on several dates showing different reasons related to security, illness and the parliament being in session.
ZIA ORPHANAGE GRAFT CASE
The Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) in July 2009 filed the Zia Orphanage graft case against Khaleda, her elder son and BNP Senior Vice Chairman Tarique Rahman and four others for embezzling over Tk 2.1 crore by forming the “fake” trust.
The four other accused are former BNP lawmaker Kazi Salimul Haque, businessman Sharfuddin Ahmed, former principal secretary Kamal Uddin Siddiqui and Momenur Rahman, nephew of BNP founder Ziaur Rahman.
ZIA CHARITABLE TRUST GRAFT CASE
The ACC on August 8 in 2011 filed the Zia charitable graft case against Khaleda and three others for abusing power in setting up the charity.
The three other accused are Harris Chowdhury, Khaleda's former political secretary, Ziaul Islam Munna, assistant private secretary (APS) of Harris, and Monirul Islam Khan, APS of former Dhaka City Corporation mayor Sadeque Hossain Khoka.
Harris is absconding while Monirul and Munna are on bail.
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