Bangladesh HC clears ways for Zia's trial in absentia in graft case

Zia, 73, whose BNP is the main opposition outside parliament, is by serving a five year jail term after being convicted in a case of embezzlement of funds of an orphanage named after her husband president Ziaur Rahman in February.

"The High Court order meant there is no legal bar for the proceedings to continue in the trial against Begum Khaleda Zia in the concerned court," lawyer for the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) Khurshid Alam Khan told reporters after a two-member high court bench dismissed a petition filed by Zia's counsels to stop the trial in absentia.

A special judge's court trying the case on September 20 ruled that the proceedings would continue despite Zia's absence as she refused to appear from the prison, but her lawyers filed the petition challenging the decision.

The former premier is being tried in another graft case, also involving a charity, called the Zia Charitable Trust.

The BNP alleged that trials were politically motivated to debar her from contesting elections, to be held by the end of the year, an allegation denied by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina-led the Awami League government.

She was admitted to the Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University hospital on October 6 following a high court order.

Zia is admitted at a VIP cabin of the hospital where the authorities have also allocated her an adjacent extra room.

The former prime minister had on September 5 expressed her dissatisfaction after authorities turned an old prison here into a court room for her trial in the case.

"Punish me as much as you want, punish me as long as you want... there is no justice here," she had told the judge appearing in the courtroom on a wheelchair from the jail.