DHAKA, 25 July 2007 — Bangladesh authorities formally charged former Premier Hasina Wajed and two relatives yesterday with extorting $435,000 from a businessman as part of a corruption crackdown, an official said.
Hasina, leader of the Awami League party, was accused with her sister and cousin in a charge sheet submitted to the court, said Deputy Police Commissioner Shahidul Haque Bhuiyan.
“Hasina has been charged by the investigating police and a date will now be fixed for the trial,” Bhuiyan added.
The Awami League chief was arrested last week in an early morning raid on her Dhaka residence.
According to the allegations, a company named East Coast Trading Ltd was given permission to set up a power plant in 2000 while Hasina was prime minister, the private UNB agency said.
Associates of the then premier, however, allegedly pressed the firm for money and threatened to cancel the project if it refused to pay, UNB said.
Hasina is one of 150 high-profile figures who have been arrested as part of an anti-corruption crackdown by Bangladesh’s military-backed emergency government, which took power in January following months of political violence.
US attorney Kristine Overmire, wife of Hasina’s son Sajeeb Wajed Joy, is likely to arrive in Dhaka to provide legal aid to the detained Awami League leader.
“We’re contemplating sending Kristine to Dhaka to help my mother in the case, Joy told newsmen in Dhaka on phone from Washington. “The date for Kristine’s departure has not been finalized,” he said.
Commenting on Awami League acting President Zillur Rahman’s remark that the party was not planning to launch any movement now, he said, “A movement has already been launched and the protest by Dhaka University teachers proves that.”
Pro-Awami League lawyers, meanwhile, plan to file a bail petition for Hasina within a week.
In another development, police said yesterday they had launched a probe into the circumstances of Hasina’s arrest.
Dhaka additional police commissioner Mohammad Moniruzzaman said officers would investigate after hearing complaints in the media from her party about the way last week’s arrest was conducted.
Party officials complained that police did not show an arrest warrant before searching Hasina’s home and that she was taken to court without a summons against her. She has since been remanded in custody.
“She was called at 4 a.m. Her personal rights were violated. Police also seized her bulletproof Mercedez Benz car. What is the relation between the allegations against her and this? The entire circumstances of the arrest were unlawful,” her personal secretary Hasan Mahmud said.
