DHAKA — Former Bangladeshi Prime Minister Hasina Wajed, facing fresh graft charges, was taken to a court yesterday but the hearing was adjourned until Feb. 26 after defense lawyers said she was ill and asked for bail. The defense said, “The former prime minister is sick with high blood pressure, ear and eye ailments.”
The Anti-Corruption Commission had filed new charges with the court last month accusing Hasina of accepting 30 million taka ($440,000) in kickbacks in a power plant deal during her term in office.
Hasina has been held at a building in Dhaka’s sprawling Parliament compound since her arrest in July last year over various corruption allegations. The court sat at a building in the same compound.
Hasina is being prosecuted by a separate court for allegedly extorting more than $400,000 from a businessman when she was in power between 1996 and 2001.
That trial was suspended on Jan. 17 after Hasina’s lawyers argued she was being tried under emergency rules for a crime allegedly committed before the imposition of the emergency in January 2007.
The Supreme Court is likely to give a decision on the appeal by next week. Hasina has denied both the charges.
The court also suspended framing of charges against Hasina until Feb. 26 when it is expected to decide whether to grant bail to the former premier.
Judge Feroz Alam suspended the framing of charges as former Power Secretary Toufique-e-Elahi Chowdhury, also accused in the case, was not produced before the court.
Another detained former prime minister, Khaleda Zia, is being held in a house in the same compound. She too is likely to face trial on graft charges soon. Bitter rivals, the two women alternated as prime minister of the impoverished south Asian country for 15 years until October 2006.
The two former prime ministers would be expected to play key roles in the election the country’s army-backed interim government has vowed to hold before the end of the year. But if convicted, they would be barred from the race, legal experts say.
— With input from Agencies
