Khaleda Zia to get police escort

Former PM Khaleda to get police escort after nearly a decade

Dhaka, Aug 13 - BNP Chairperson and former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia is set to get a police escort once again after nearly a decade.

The Ministry of Home Affairs  issued an order for ensusring police escort for Khaleda Zia, Jahangir Alam, senior secretary to the Public Security Division of the ministry said on Tuesday.

The police escort was withdrawn by the then Awami League government after Khaleda Zia lost her post as the opposition leader in parliament in 2015.

On August 6, Khaleda Zia was completely freed by an order of President Mohammed Shahabuddin.

The president passed the order under Article 49 of the Bangladesh Constitution, according to a gazette issued by the home ministry on August 6.

Article 49 states that "The president shall have power to grant pardons, reprieves, and respites and to remit, suspend, or commute any sentence passed by any court, tribunal, or other authority."

Khaleda Zia was placed in Old Dhaka Central Jail on February 8, 2018, after a special court sentenced her to five years in prison in the Zia Orphanage Trust corruption case. On October 30, 2018, the High Court raised her punishment to 10 years. Later, she was convicted in the Zia Charitable Trust corruption case.

Amid the coronavirus outbreak, the government temporarily freed her from jail after 776 days through an executive order suspending her sentence on March 25, 2020, with conditions that she would stay in her Gulshan house and not leave the country.

Khaleda Zia, aged 79, has long battled various ailments, including liver cirrhosis, arthritis, diabetes, and issues related to kidney, lung, heart, and eyes.

Since her conditional release from jail in 2020, the BNP chief has been receiving treatment frequently at the hospital under a medical board headed by cardiologist Prof Shahabuddin Talukder.

Khaleda's doctors have been recommending sending her abroad since she was diagnosed with liver cirrhosis in November 2021.

On October 26 last year, three US specialist doctors completed the hepatic procedure known as the transjugular intrahepatic portosystemic shunt (TIPS procedure) to stop water accretion in Khaleda Zia's stomach and chest, and bleeding in her liver.-UNB