BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia has been acquitted from all the 37 cases filed during previous caretaker government and Awami League regime.
One of her lawyers, Zakir Hossain Bhuiyan, confirmed it to The Daily Star today (February 19).
The Supreme Court on January 15 this year acquitted Khaleda Zia, her son, BNP acting chairman Tarique Rahman, and four others of corruption charges in the Zia Orphanage Trust case.
While the High Court on November 27 last year acquitted Khaleda Zia in Zia Charitable Trust corruption case in which she was sentenced to seven years' imprisonment by a lower court.
She was also discharged from different defamation cases filed against her across the country during the AL regime.
She was earlier discharged from the charges of Barapukuria coalmine and Gatco graft cases.
The other cases, including a sedition one, were disposed of on different dates after the fall down of Awami League government on August 5 last year.
On Wednesday (February 19), a Dhaka court acquitted Khaleda Zia and seven others from the Niko graft case filed by the Anti-Corruption Commission in 2007.
Khaleda Zia was sent to jail in a corruption case on February 8, 2018.
In April 2019, Khaleda's health deteriorated due to inadequate medical treatment in the jail. On March 26, 2020, amid the Covid-19 pandemic, she was released from prison after 776 days.
Afterward, Awami League government temporarily released her on an executive order, suspending her sentence on the condition that she remain at her Gulshan residence and not leave the country. The term of her release had been extended several times.
After years of relentless appeals and repeated denials, 79-year-old former prime minister Khaleda Zia flew to London last month for better medical treatment following the fall of the Awami League government in a mass uprising.
Source: The Daily Star