A Bangladeshi court on Monday turned down a plea by BNP chief and ex-prime minister Khaleda Zia to scrap the testimony of a plaintiff in two graft cases against her but gave time to her lawyers to cross-examine the complainant.
"There is no scope to cancel the plaintiff's deposition," said Judge Abu Ahmed Jamaddar of Dhaka's Third Special Court as Zia's lawyers submitted the appeal while she was seated on the dock. The counsels of Zia, 69, filed the petition seeking to scrap the testimony of the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) official who earlier filed a case as the plaintiff accused her of graft charges involving two charities named after her slain husband and Bangladesh president Ziaur Rahman.
"The judge rejected the petition but accepted their (Zia's lawyers) petition seeking more time to prepare themselves to cross examine the complainant, fixing a new date of hearing on June 18," prosecution lawyers Mosharaf Hossain Kajol said.
He added that complainant of the graft charges, ACC deputy director Harunur Rashid, will be cross-examined by defence lawyers. Zia's chief counsel Khondker Mahbubuddin Ahmed, however, told newsmen that they might move to the High Court seeking to scrap Rashid's testimony as it was recorded in Zia's absence in the court.
This was her second appearance in the court in seven weeks as she is being tried on two graft charges in which she was accused of misappropriating an amount of Taka 52.5 million involving Zia Orphanage Trust graft and Charitable Trust.
Bangladesh's troubled politics last month took a new turn as Zia appeared in the court after repeatedly refusing to respond to the court order while during the previous three months of unrest claimed over 130 lives as her party along with its crucial ally fundamentalist Jamaat-e-Islami spearheaded a violent street campaign across Bangladesh.
Zia's elder son and Bangladesh Nationalist Party's senior vice president Tarique Rahman who now lives in London is a co-accused in the cases while the court earlier declared him "fugitive" as he preferred not to face the trial in person, returning home.
The Supreme Court turned down her second 'leave to appeal' petition challenging her indictment and asked her to face the trial in the lower court in November last year. The ACC alleged that the two charities existed only in papers and a huge amount of money was misappropriated in the name of the two organisations while Zia was the premier during BNP's 2001-2006 tenure. Zia and other accused could be jailed for life if found guilty, lawyers said.
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