DHAKA, 4 September 2007 — Former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia was arrested in a corruption case yesterday and sent to a makeshift jail in the Parliament building complex.
Her younger son Arafat Rahman Koko was also arrested in the same case and sent on a seven-day police remand for interrogation. Earlier, Khaleda and Koko were arrested from their Dhaka cantonment residence at about 7.45 a.m. and produced in the chief metropolitan magistrate’s court in Dhaka.
Khaleda said the corruption charge against her was “part of a conspiracy” to break up the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and to keep her out of future elections. “The conspirators are trying to break up the BNP. This false case was filed to keep me and my son away from the politics of Bangladesh, so that we can’t take part in future elections,” she told the chief metropolitan magistrate’s court during the hearing of the bail petition.
Referring to the corruption charge, Khaleda said: “I’ve no need of much money, nor my son needs the tainted money. My family needs no illegal earning…The corruption case is wholly motivated to destroy BNP and keep us out of politics.”
Pleading innocent, the 63-year-old Khaleda, who ruled the country for a decade in three terms, further said: “The case is intended to harass us. The conspirators wanted to send me and my family abroad. If we had gone abroad, this case would not be filed…we’ve been dragged to the court by filing the false case.”
Witnesses said about 100 pro-BNP lawyers raised slogans in the court compound as Khaleda left the court.
Khaleda now joins her bitter rival and another former prime minister, Hasina Wajed, and more than 170 senior political figures behind bars.
Mainul Hussein, the army-backed administration’s law and information adviser, said Khaleda’s arrest proved that “no one is above the law” in the government’s drive against corruption. “Khaleda Zia’s arrest was delayed because they (the Anti-Corruption Commission) needed some time to have all the necessary proofs in hand,” he told reporters.
The arrest of Khaleda and her son came after the commission accused her of illegally influencing the selection of an operator for two state-run container depots in 2003, during her second term in power.
