Bangladeshi opposition leader and former prime minister Khaleda Zia yesterday left her office for the first time in three months amid an ongoing political crisis.
Zia, 69, was taken by car to a court where she surrendered and secured bail in two graft cases against her.
Security was tight, with hundreds of police officers and border guards surrounding the court.
Photo: AFP
Authorities had confined her inside her office compound in an upscale district of Dhaka on Jan. 3, after she planned to lead an antigovernment rally through the capital on the first anniversary of a disputed national election.
A judge issued an arrest warrant against the former prime minister in late February, after she repeatedly failed to attend hearings in the graft cases.
“She left the office at 9:55am,” Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) spokesman Shamsuddin Dider told reporters, adding that Zia was granted bail in both cases.
Photo: AFP
“It is the first time in more than three months she has stepped out of her office, where she was confined on the night of Jan. 3,” he added.
Zia planned to lead the rally in the capital on the first anniversary of the general election on Jan. 5 last year.
The BNP and a 20-party opposition alliance which Zia leads had boycotted the election because it was not held under a neutral, caretaker administration, as in the past.
Police officers padlocked her office’s front gate, used pepper spray on her as she tried to leave the compound, and parked 10 trucks loaded with sand and bricks outside the gate to block the exit.
Security was relaxed weeks later and authorities said she was free to leave — although the BNP said she was still confined to her office.
Restrictions on entering the office compound remained. More than a dozen people were arrested when they tried to meet Zia or bring in food for her.
While confined to her office, Zia urged supporters to enforce a nationwide transport blockade. The work stoppage was intended to force her Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to quit and pave the way for a new general election under a neutral administration.
The blockade unleashed deadly violence, leaving more than 120 people dead as opposition activists firebombed hundreds of buses and trucks and police employed live rounds to counter demonstrators.
About 15,000 opposition supporters and dozens of BNP senior officials have been arrested as part of a crackdown by Hasina..
In recent days tensions have apparently eased.
Mass arrests have eroded the effectiveness of the transport blockade and the BNP has decided to take part in mayoral and local council polls in Dhaka and the port city of Chittagong.
On Saturday, BNP officials broke padlocks and opened the party’s main headquarters in central Dhaka. It had been sealed by police at the start of the year.
In late February, a lower court issued an arrest warrant for Zia on charges that she embezzled US$650,000 from a charity and a trust when she was prime minister from 2001 to 2006. The warrant has not been executed.
Zia has called the cases politically motivated and aimed at destroying her party. The opposition leader also faces at least four unrelated charges over the ongoing violence.
The UN and the EU, Dhaka’s biggest trade partner, have urged the Bangladeshi government and the opposition to hold talks to end the crisis.
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