DHAKA: A Dhaka court on Thursday sentenced ousted prime minister Sheikh Hasina to 21 years imprisonment and her two children to five years each over alleged irregularities in allocation of plots under a government housing project after their trial in absentia.
Dhaka Special Judge Court-5 handed down the sentences to 78-year-old Hasina, her son Sajib Wajed Joy and daughter Saima Wazed Putul in three cases over corruption charges in the government housing project at Purbachal adjacent to the capital.
"The plot was allotted to Sheikh Hasina without any application and in a manner that exceeded the legally authorised jurisdiction," Judge Mohammad Abdullah Al Mamun said while delivering the judgment.
Hasina was sentenced to seven years in each of the three cases involving the alleged allocation totalling 21 years in prison.
Apart from the Hasina family, 20 others, including former junior minister for housing Sharif Ahmed and officials of the housing ministry and Rajdhani Unyan Kartripakkah, were tried in the cases and except one, all were sentenced to varying prison terms.
The man who was acquitted is a junior officer of the ministry. Only one of the accused faced the trial in person and he was sentenced to three years.
Bangladesh's Anti-Corruption Commission filed six cases between January 12 to 14 and submitted charge-sheets in all of them on March 10 while the verdict on the three cases came on Tuesday.
Authorities tightened security in and around the court complex in the old part of Dhaka as the judgment came 10 days after a special Bangladeshi tribunal sentenced Hasina to death on charges of committing “crimes against humanity”.
On November 17, the International Crimes Tribunal (ICT-BD) sentenced Hasina to death along with then home minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal. Hasina is currently in India. Kamal is believed to be hiding in India.
Hasina's Awami League government was toppled in a student-led violent protest termed as the ‘July Uprising' on August 5 last year.
Three days later, Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus flew from Paris at the call of the protesting students to assume the charge of the interim government as its chief adviser.