Bangladesh Jails Former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia in Graft Case

(Bloomberg) -- A Dhaka court sentenced former Bangladesh prime minister Khaleda Zia to five years in prison for embezzling around $250,000 in foreign aid, sparking fears of violence.

Zia's chief lawyer, Khandker Mahbub Hossain, said the verdict was “designed to keep her out of the next election -- we will take it to the higher court and hope we will get justice there.”

Minutes after Judge Mohammad Akhtaruzzaman announced the court's verdict, security forces led away Zia to jail.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and Zia come from political families that have alternated in power for almost all of Bangladesh's history. They're referred to locally as the “Battling Begums,” or high-ranking Muslim women, reflecting their constant fights ever since they jointly overthrew a military leader in 1990. The World Bank cites political uncertainty from elections as one of the biggest risks to the economy which is seen growing at 6.4 percent in fiscal year 2018.

Zia's Bangladesh Nationalist Party threatened to start broader anti-government protests, prompting police to ban gatherings and rallies in the capital. The government deployed paramilitary troops across the country.

‘False' Verdict

She is entitled to file an appeal, Law Minister Anisul Huq said at a media briefing in Dhaka Thursday. The verdict will not instantly disqualify Zia from running in the next parliamentary election due in December, according to Huq. But she will be banned from running if she loses her final appeal in the Supreme Court, he said.

“We condemn the verdict as it's a false, made-up case against a patriotic leader,” Zia's party member Ruhul Kabir Rizvi told reporters in Dhaka.

Zia's son Tarique Rahman and four others have been sentenced to 10 years in jail each in the same case that was opened by the South Asian nation's Anti-Corruption Commission in 2008.

She was convicted of misappropriating the fund intended for the welfare of orphans. Rather than using the donated funds to support orphans, prosecutors said Zia and her family embezzled the funds for personal gain, and no orphanage benefited.

“The case was a tool to harass me and my family,” Zia said at a media briefing in Dhaka on Wednesday.

TV footage showed police using teargas shells Thursday to break up street protests as hundreds of Zia's supporters descended on the streets chanting slogans to support her.

To contact the reporter on this story: Arun Devnath in Dhaka at adevnath@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Ruth Pollard at rpollard2@bloomberg.net, Unni Krishnan

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