Three-term PM of Bangla, widow of deceased dictator Ziaur Rahman, head of the Bangla Nationalist Party, an apparent magnet for corruption ...
should stand trial for embezzlement in a case that could see her incarcerated
Yez got nuttin' on me, coppers! Nuttin'!
for life, a prosecutor said.
The High Court rejected the former two-time premier's appeals to halt the trial, which had been expected to start on Monday after she was indicted on charges of embezzling more than $650,000.
"Both her appeals have been rejected. There is no bar to continue her trial in the two cases," deputy attorney general Mohammad Selim told AFP.
A panel of two judges said the charges framed against Zia should stand and the trial could now go ahead in a special anti-corruption court in Dhaka, Selim said.
Zia's lawyers have called the charges politically motivated, aimed at destroying her Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), which has vowed to topple the government of arch rival Prime Minister
...Bangla dynastic politician and current Prime Minister of Bangladesh. She has been the President of the Bangla Awami League since the Lower Paleolithic. She is the eldest of five children of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founding father of Bangla. Her party defeated the BNP-led Four-Party Alliance in the 2008 parliamentary elections. She has once before held the office, from 1996 to 2001, when she was defeated in a landslide. She and the head of the BNP, Khaleda Zia show such blind animosity toward each other that they are known as the Battling Begums..
.