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DHAKA, Bangladesh – The former Bangladeshi Prime Minister, Khaleda Zia, was sentenced Monday to seven years in prison for being found guilty of abusing his power to raise money for a charity named in honor of her late husband.
His supporters see in the numerous criminal cases against Zia and his party attempts to weaken the opposition ahead of the elections scheduled for December. The government says it has specific accusations against the defendants.
Zia's party immediately rejected the verdict and announced its intention to demonstrate Tuesday across the country.
Zia, 73, was absent from the Dhaka-filled hearing room and her attorneys also dropped the procedure, claiming that they would not get justice. The Supreme Court on Monday rejected Zia's appeal to overturn the verdict, filed seven years after the charges were filed by the country's anti-corruption commission.
Zia is serving a five-year prison sentence in another corruption case and was transferred to a hospital earlier this month for medical reasons, according to her party. His party claims that both cases are politically motivated.
Judge Md Akhtaruzaman concluded that Zia had abused her power while leading the government in 2001-2006 by collecting $ 375,000 from unknown sources for the Zia Charitable Trust Fund, named in honor of Ziaur Rahman , former military leader and assassinated president in 1981.
The judge sentenced three other people, including a former Zia political secretary, to seven years in prison for collecting money.
Mosharraf Hossain Kajol, a prosecutor's attorney, said after the verdict that he was pleased that the judge imposed on the defendants the most severe penalty for the alleged acts.
Zia is facing more than 30 other cases pending in the country's courts. According to his Bangladeshi nationalist party, these cases are an abuse of government power, his longtime rival, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, demanding a third consecutive term in the upcoming elections.
Zia and her political partners boycotted the last general election in 2014, paving the way for Hasina's resumption of power, despite the protests and violence. The main partner of Zia, the right-wing Jamaat-e-Islami party, fierce opponent of Hasina, is trying to regain strength after the execution of its main leaders for war crimes committed during the war of independence of 1971 against Pakistan.
Taricane Rahman, Zia's eldest son, heir to dynastic political culture, has been in exile in London for years not to be arrested. Earlier this month, a court sentenced him to life imprisonment in a 2004 grenade attack case.
A newly formed opposition alliance, led by a prominent lawyer, calls for the resignation of Hasina and the formation of a neutral government at the time of the elections. But Hasina says she will lead the government according to the constitution to organize the elections. An electoral calendar is scheduled for the first week of next month. Zia's party is the main partner of the new alliance.
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