Bangladesh News

BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia is expected to walk free from jail today as all necessary papers for her release reached the jail authorities yesterday.

“She will be released anytime tomorrow,” Maj Shamsul Haider Siddique, deputy inspector general (prisons), told The Daily Star confirming receipt of the bail bonds in all four graft cases against the former premier around 7:00pm yesterday.

“We’ve already checked the papers and are waiting to release her tomorrow as early as possible,” Siddique added.

Leaders of BNP and its allies were busy through the day yesterday planning a grand reception for Khaleda who will be walking out of jail a year and eight days into her arrest from her Dhaka Cantonment house on graft charges.

Although the Anti-corruption Commission (ACC), which filed the four graft cases against Khaleda, also filed separate petitions seeking stay of the bail orders, those will not be an impediment to her release as hearings of the petitions will not be held before September 15, according to Khaleda’s lawyers.

The ACC yesterday filed two separate petitions with the Supreme Court (SC) seeking stay of the High Court (HC) orders granting Khaleda bail in Gatco and Niko cases, a day after filing separate similar petitions seeking stay of the HC orders granting her bail in Zia Orphanage Trust and Barapukuria coalmine cases.

“The HC bail orders will remain valid until adjudication of the ACC petitions in the Appellate Division,” Khaleda’s counsel Barrister Rafique-ul Huq told The Daily Star.

The joint forces arrested Khaleda and her son Arafat Rahman Koko in the morning of September 3 from their Shaheed Moinul Road residence in Dhaka Cantonment on graft charges, and a Dhaka court sent her to a sub-jail a couple of hours later.

All legal impediments to Khaleda’s release were removed with the HC granting her three months’ ad-interim bail in Gatco and Niko graft cases on Tuesday.

On August 26, the HC granted four months’ ad-interim bail to Khaleda and her elder son Tarique Rahman in Zia Orphanage Trust fund embezzlement case responding to their separate bail petitions moved on the previous day.

Two days before that, an HC bench granted Khaleda a four-month ad-interim bail in Barapukuria coal mine graft case.

Khaleda’s counsels yesterday submitted her bail bonds in the four cases to four separate courts.

“The courts dealing with Niko and Gatco cases accepted the Tk 1 lakh bail bond from Sanaullah Mia as the advocate guarantor and me as the local guarantor,” Masud Ahmed Talukder, one of Khaleda’s counsels told The Daily Star.

Earlier in the day, they submitted bail bonds in Zia Orphanage Trust and Barapukuria coalmine cases to the Court of Chief Metropolitan Magistrate of Dhaka, which the court accepted.

On receiving the bonds, the courts sent Khaleda’s release orders to the prison authorities.

Sources said the government has taken all preparations for Khaleda’s release today.

TODAY’S PROGRAMME
After her release, Khaleda Zia is likely to visit at Zia Uddyan the grave of her late husband Ziaur Rahman, who was also a president of the country and the founder of BNP.

Party sources said she may later go to the BNP office at Naya Paltan before going to her cantonment home.

Her elder son Tarique Rahman is expected to leave the country any time soon for treatment abroad as he was also released on bail in all 13 cases filed against him on charges of corruption.

Her younger son, Koko, who had been released on July 17 through a government executive order, left for Singapore on July 19 for treatment.

Khaleda earlier put Tarique’s release as a condition for her own release from jail.