DHAKA, 4 December 2007 — Former Bangladeshi Prime Minister Hasina Wajed appeared in court yesterday where it was confirmed she would be facing extortion charges, a state prosecutor said.
The leader of the Awami League, one of Bangladesh’s main parties, was led to the dock amid high security at the special courtroom in the Parliament complex in Dhaka, said state prosecutor Mohammad Borhanuddin.
“After the hearing, judge Azizul Haq ruled that his court has the jurisdiction to hear the extortion case against Hasina,” said Borhanuddin.
“The court has fixed Dec. 9 the next date of hearing when it is expected to lay the charges against her and start the trial,” he said.
State lawyers have said Hasina, who ruled the country in 1996-2001, faces two charges — namely extortion and threatening to extort. If found guilty she faces a maximum of five years in jail.
She has been accused of extorting 29.9 million taka ($435,000) from the owner of a business group in 2000, and was arrested on July 16 after the owner filed an extortion case against her at a Dhaka police station.
Hasina and two relatives are alleged to have received kickbacks in return for allowing a businessman to build a power plant, said Mahbube Alam, one of the lawyers in Hasina’s defense team.
In June, businessman Azam J. Chowdhury, managing director of Eastcoast Trading Ltd., filed a case against Hasina, her sister, Rehana, and their cousin, Fazlul Karim Selim, alleging they took money from him to permit the plant to go ahead.
Selim, a former government minister, stood beside Hasina in court yesterday. Rehana, who lives in London, will be tried in absentia. On the basis of the new evidence, the court will have to decide whether any additional charges are to be filed, chief public prosecutor Sharfuddin Khan said.
Selim, meanwhile, retracted a confessional statement given to police earlier, saying it was extracted under duress, his lawyer Syed Rezaul Rahman told the court.
Selim’s statement had implicated Hasina and Rehana in the extortion case.
Rehana was not actively involved in politics, but allegedly made her fortune by negotiating government contracts during her sister’s 1996-2001 term in office.
Defense lawyers have been trying to challenge the legality of the case, with Hasina claiming the country’s emergency government is merely trying to force her out of politics. The politician, who is being held at a house inside the Parliament complex, is among 150 high-profile figures who have been arrested as part of the government’s anti-graft campaign.
The military-backed government launched the massive crackdown aimed at cleaning up the country’s notoriously corrupt politics before fresh elections are held in late 2008.
Bangladesh has been under emergency rule since Jan. 11 when elections were canceled after months of violence over vote-rigging allegations made by the Awami League party against the Bangladesh Nationalist Party.
The BNP-led government of Khaleda Zia, the country’s last elected premier, held power until October 2006.
