Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal on Sunday said that there are legal complications in taking BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia abroad for treatment purposes. He, however, said that there might be a need for a court approval in this regard.
Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal also said that the law minister knows the matter well. “Our ministry cannot do anything outside the law,” he added.
The minister made the statement after Law Minister Anisul Huq on Saturday said that Khaleda Zia must submit an application to the Ministry of Home Affairs if she intends to go abroad for better medical treatment.
Talking to journalists during his visit to Akhaura Rail Station in Brahmanbaria on Saturday, the law minister said that the application must be submitted to the home ministry, which can ask the law ministry for its opinion. A decision will be reached upon their formal submission. “I have yet not received any application regarding Khaleda Zia’s potential trip abroad for medical purposes,” he had said.
Talking to journalists in the Secretariat on Sunday, Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal said, “It is not a matter of the permission from the home ministry. As it is a matter of court’s jurisdiction, the home ministry has nothing to do without the court’s permission.”
He also said that Khaleda Zia is a convict in a case and the prime minister, after suspending the conviction, allowed her to receive treatment from the best doctors at home. BNP normally seeks permission from home ministry which is later forwarded to the law ministry for legal explanation. If law ministry thinks it is a matter of the court’s jurisdiction, they will send it to the court, he added.
“I think there is a legal complexity and a permission from court might be needed,” said the Home Minister.
Asked whether BNP has written to the home ministry about taking Khaleda abroad for treatment, Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal said they are yet to receive any such letter.
Reporters then asked the minister about BNP’s claim that whenever they write letters to the home ministry, they seek permission to take Khaleda Zia abroad for treatment.
“They (BNP) do it every time. We approve what is in our jurisdiction. They will have to go to the court if they want to do more,” said the minister.
Khaleda Zia is now undergoing treatment at Evercare Hospital in Dhaka. She was moved from her cabin to the Coronary Care Unit (CCU) on Friday (September 22) morning. She was later sent back to her cabin in the afternoon on that day.
In this regard, Anisul Huq had said that Khaleda Zia continues to receive quality healthcare at the hospital despite her prison sentence due to the benevolence of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.
On September 18, the Security Services Division of the home ministry issued a notification extending the suspension of Khaleda Zia’s jail term by another six months. She has to receive treatment in Dhaka, and she will not be allowed to go abroad during this period, said the notification.
Since her conditional release in 2020, she has been receiving treatment at the hospital under a medical board headed by cardiologist Professor Dr Shahabuddin Talukder.
Khaleda Zia was sent to jail after 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 Covid-19 outbreak, the government temporarily freed the BNP chief from the jail through an executive order suspending her sentence on March 25 in 2020 with the condition that she stay in her Gulshan house in the city and not leave the country.
