Khaleda Zia gets six-month bail in defamation cases

Dhaka, June 18 

A Bangladesh court on Tuesday granted a six-month bail to former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia in two defamation cases filed against her.

Justicea Muhammad Abdul Hafiz and Kashefa Hussain passed the order oafter hearing a bail petition filed by Khaleda's lawyers. However, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) chief cannot be released from the jail as she is convicted in two other graft cases. 

AB Siddique, president of Bangladesh Jananetri Parishad, a pro-Awami League organisation, filed the cases against Zia on charge of hurting the religious sentiment of the Muslims and for making derogatory comments on Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.

He filed one case on October 21, 2014 claiming that on October 14 of the same year, Zia at a programme in Engineers Institution in Dhaka said “the ruling party’s professed secularism was nothing but a sham”, adding that her remarks hurt sentiments of Muslims. In another defamation case filed on January 25, 2017, Siddique claimed that Zia at a programme said Sheikh Mujibur Rahman had not wanted independence of Bangladesh, rather he had wanted to be the Pakistan PM. The former PM landed in jail on February 8, 2018, after being convicted in a corruption case involving Zia Orphanage Trust. — IANS