Bangladesh opposition leader and former Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia walked out of the jail on Wednesday afternoon after 25 months as t...
Bangladesh opposition leader and former Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia walked out of the jail on Wednesday afternoon after 25 months as the government conditionally suspended her jail term by six months.
Hundreds of leaders and activists of Zia’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party welcomed her at the gate of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University, where Zia had been undergoing treatment from last year for several conditions, including arthritis, problems in her neck and waist, and eye problems.
Zia, the 74-year-old widow of former Bangladesh president Ziaur Rahman, has been freed on the condition that she receives treatment at home during this period and that she cannot go abroad. Her family had repeatedly requested the Sheikh Hasina government to release her so that she could go to London for better treatment.
The former Bangladesh prime minister had been found guilty of corruption and sent to jail for five years in February, 2018. She was accused of misusing her power by embezzling $250,000 in donations meant for an orphanage trust.
In October, a court ruling on her appeal doubled her jail term. She had been serving her time in a jail in the older part of the capital, which once housed the Dhaka Central Jail.
Her Bangladesh Nationalist Party says the...
