Staff Reporter :
BNP Chairperson Begum Khaleda Zia gets her jail sentence’s suspension period extended for another six months.
The Ministry of Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs has given its opinion in favour of the extension.
“The Security Service Division under the Home Ministry will issue a gazette notification in this regard,” Law Minister Anisul Huq said on Sunday.
Begum Khaleda Zia will take treatment from home and she will not be allowed to go abroad during this period, the Law Minister said.
Khaleda Zia’s family members filed a petition before the Home Ministry seeking her unconditional release recently.
They also sought permission from the home minister to allow Khaleda Zia go abroad for her emergency medical treatment.
The former Prime Minister was sent to Old Dhaka Central Jail after she was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment by a special court in the Zia Orphanage Trust corruption case on February 8, 2018.
She was convicted in a second graft case later.
The government temporarily freed Khaleda Zia from jail through an executive order suspending her sentence on March 25, 2020 amid the coronavirus outbreak.
The temporarily release was on conditions that she would stay at her Gulshan house, and would not leave the country.
The government extended her conditional release in the two corruption cases several times.
The BNP Chairperson was admitted to Evercare Hospital several times after she had tested positive for Covid-19 in April 2021.
Khaleda Zia’s family submitted several applications to the government seeking permission to send her abroad for taking advanced medical treatment as she was suffering long from multiple health complications.
The government has rejected these applications every time showing the cause that she was convicted in two graft cases by the court.
The 76-year-old BNP chief has been staying at her Gulshan residence since her release from jail.
A special team of her personal physicians has been overseeing her medical treatment.
