Family members of BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia have filed an application seeking extension of release period of the former prime minister.
The family members filed the petition to the Home Ministry on Sunday (September 11), said BNP Chairperson’s press wing member Shairul Kabir Khan.
On behalf of the family, Khaleda Zia’s younger brother Shamim Iskander submitted the application to the ministry.
In the application, Shamim Iskander sought extension of the suspension of jail sentence of Khaleda Zia. He also requested the government to allow the BNP chief to go abroad for better treatment and sought unconditional release.
Earlier on Saturday (September 10), Law Minister Anisul Huq had said that Khaleda Zia’s stay out of jail period will be extended again by an executive order if her family members submit application in this regard.
“We can say that the government must extend the suspension of jail sentence of Khaleda Zia if her family submits application to this effect,” he said.
Lastly on March 23, Khaleda Zia’s jail sentence was suspended and the release period was extended by six months under the previous two conditions. The conditions are- during the release period, Khaleda Zia will receive her treatment from her residence in the capital and it is stipulated that she will not be able to go abroad during this time.
Khaleda Zia spent some time in Old Dhaka Central Jail as a lower court sentenced her to five years' imprisonment in the Zia Orphanage Trust corruption case on February 8 in 2018. Later, she was found guilty in another corruption case the same year.
Amid the coronavirus outbreak, the government temporarily freed the BNP chief from jail through an executive order suspending her sentence on March 25 in 2020, on conditions that she would stay at her Gulshan house, and would not leave the country.
The BNP chief was admitted to Evercare Hospital several times after she had tested positive for Covid-19 in April 2021.
Khaleda Zia’s family submitted several applications to the government seeking permission to send her to an advanced centre abroad for the treatment of her multiple health complications, but the government has rejected it every time as she was convicted of corruption by the court in two cases.
The 76-year-old BNP leader has been suffering from various physical complications.