UNB, Dhaka: A Dhaka court on Tuesday ordered BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia and 12 other BNP-Jamaat leaders to appear before it on April 13 in Gatco graft case filed by the Anti Corruption Commission (ACC). Judge Abu Ahmed Jamadar of Dhaka Special Judge’s Court-3, passed the order after receiving a copy of a High Court verdict in this connection, said ACC lawyer Mosharaf Hossain Kajal. Earlier on February 15, the High Court ordered Khaleda to surrender before the trial court in two months as the Court (HC) released the full text of its verdict rejecting her two writ petitions filed by the BNP chief challenging the legality of the graft case and its inclusion under the Emergency Powers Act. On August 5 last year, a High Court bench comprising Justice Md Nuruzzaman and Justice Abdur Rob rejected the two writ petitions. On September 2, 2007, the ACC filed the Gatco graft case against Khaleda, her younger son Arafat Rahman Koko, Jamaat-e-Islami Ameer Motiur Rahman Nizami and 10 others for causing a loss of Tk 145.64 crore to the national exchequer by allegedly awarding the contract of container handling at the Chittagong port and the Dhaka’s Inland Container Depot to Gatco. Khaleda on September 27, 2007 filed a petition with the HC challenging the legality of the inclusion of the case under the Emergency Powers Act and seeking a stay order on the trial proceedings. In 2008, an HC bench issued a rule and stayed the trial proceedings after hearing the petition of the BNP chief. In the same year, the proceedings of the graft case were stayed again as Khaleda filed another petition challenging the legality of the case.
