The Law Ministry has given its opinion in favour of extending the period of BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia’s jail sentence’s suspension by another six months on the existing conditions.
The ministry gave its opinion in this regard on Sunday. “The ministry has given its opinion for extending Khaleda Zia’s jail term suspension period by another six months on the existing conditions. Already the opinion of the ministry has been sent to the home ministry,” said Law Minister Anisul Huq.
He said these while talking to reporters at his ministry office at Bangladesh Secretariat.
The law ministry on Thursday received an application from Khaleda Zia’s family seeking another extended suspension of the former prime minister’s jail term.
Khaleda Zia’s younger brother Shamim Eskandar submitted the fresh application recently to the home ministry seeking a further extension to the suspended jail term of his sister as her release period will end on March 24.
In the application, Shamim Eskandar also called upon the government to relax the conditions of the BNP chief’s release and allow her to go abroad for treatment.
In the previous applications, Khaleda Zia’s family also sought permission to send her abroad for medical treatment.
This is the seventh time the BNP chief’s family sought an extension to her suspended jail term.
The government accepted all the previous applications but did not give Khaleda Zia permission to go abroad for treatment.
Law Minister Anisul Huq explained that there was no legal scope to relax the conditions given by the government during Khaleda Zia’s first release through an executive order.
Amid the Covid-19 situation, the government temporarily freed Khaleda Zia from jail through an executive order by suspending her sentence on March 25 in 2020 with conditions that she would stay at her house in the capital and would not leave the country. Since then, her release term has been extended every six months following the family’s plea.
The government has so far extended the convicted former prime minister's conditional release six times, with the last extension on September 18 in 2022.
Khaleda Zia was sent to 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 and convicted in another corruption case the same year.
The 77-year-old BNP chief has been staying at her Gulshan residence since her release in 2020. She also received treatment at Evercare Hospital in the capital six times since she was infected with Covid-19 in April 2021
As per her physicians, Khaleda has been suffering from various ailments, including liver cirrhosis, arthritis, diabetes, kidney, lung, heart, and eye problems.
They have long been saying that the BNP chief needs to receive treatment in any advanced medical centre abroad for her critical diseases, including liver cirrhosis.
