File photo.
Court reporter //

The Appellate Division has acquitted BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia from a 10-year sentence in the Zia Orphanage Trust corruption case. At the same time, the verdicts of the trial court and the High Court have been quashed. Due to this, BNP Acting Chairman Tarique Rahman and other accused have also been acquitted from the sentence.

On Wednesday (January 15) morning, Chief Justice Dr. Syed Refat Ahmed and five judges of the Appellate Division unanimously announced the verdict. The Supreme Court granted Khaleda Zia’s appeal against the High Court’s sentence and gave this verdict.

In the verdict, the court said that the case was filed out of revenge.

At a press conference at the Supreme Court premises, senior lawyer Zainul Abedin said that the court has quashed the verdicts given by the lower court and the High Court in the Zia Orphanage Trust corruption case. Along with this, everyone who could not appeal in this case, including Tarique Rahman, has been acquitted.

He said, the court’s observation is that this case was a personal vendetta case of Sheikh Hasina. The court called it a malicious prosecution (malicious case). Along with this, this case was so malicious that it overturned the verdict of the High Court and the lower court.

Earlier on Tuesday (January 14), the appeal hearing of this case was concluded by the five-member bench of the Appellate Division led by Chief Justice Dr. Syed Refaat Ahmed. The Supreme Court has fixed today as the date for the verdict.

BNP Chairperson Begum Khaleda Zia was sentenced to 10 years in this case. The same sentence was also given to the party’s acting chairman Tarique Rahman. The party’s lawyers expect all the accused to be acquitted in the verdict.

They said that the then Awami League government made a farce in the name of justice to harass the Zia family.

And the state party said in the hearing that it was not right to sentence anyone based on assumptions. And the ACC’s position was that there was no evidence of corruption, irregularities or breach of trust by the accused, including Begum Zia, in the case documents and evidence.

Yesterday, on Tuesday, the lawyer of another accused in the case, Kazi Salimul Haque, held a hearing seeking acquittal. With this, the appeal hearing of the Zia Orphanage Trust corruption case ended.

It is worth noting that during the Zia Orphanage Trust case in 2018, various allegations were made against Khaleda Zia and her family and party members, one of which was that the money of the Zia Orphanage Trust was embezzled under her leadership. When this allegation was proven in court, Khaleda Zia was sentenced to prison. After that, various political and legal discussions started regarding the case at the national and international levels.

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