Former Prime Minister and BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia and three others have been sentenced to seven years in prison each for embezzling Tk 31.54 million from the Zia Charitable Trust.
Judge Md Akhtaruzzaman announced the verdict on Monday from the temporary premises of the court at the old central prison at Dhaka’s Nazimuddin Road.
The final trial proceedings in the case went ahead in the absence of Khaleda, who is serving time in jail over another graft case, after the prison authorities repeatedly failed to bring her to court.
The Zia Charitable Trust graft case was filed by the Anti-Corruption Commission in 2011.
Khaleda’s former political affairs secretary Harris Chowdhury, his former aide and former BIWTA acting director Ziaul Islam Munna, and former Dhaka mayor Sadeque Hossain Khoka’s personal secretary Monirul Islam Khan are the three others convicted in the case, bdnews24.com reported.
Harris Chowdhury has been at large since the start of the case.
Ziaul Islam Munna and Sadeque Hossain Khoka were in court to hear Monday’s verdict.
Khaleda has been in custody since February 8, when she was sentenced to five years in prison over the Zia Orphanage Trust graft case.
On October 6 she was taken to Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University hospital, where she is currently receiving treatment.