Peer’s anger as India denies him entry to raise Zia ‘injustice’

A BRITISH parliamentarian and lawyer, a counsel for jailed Bang­ladeshi politician Khaleda Zia, said last Thursday (12) he was outraged by India’s decision to deny him entry to address a press conference defending his client and meet a human rights body.

India’s foreign ministry said it sent back crossbench peer Lord Alex Carlile from New Delhi air­port last Wednesday (11) because his “intended activity in India was incompatible with the pur­pose of his visit as mentioned in his visa application”.

“This is no way to treat a 70-year-old senior lawyer and parliamentarian,” Lord Carlile said in a statement.

“I am outraged by the political interference in Begum Khaleda Zia’s case on political grounds by two governments, and I expect a full explanation from the Indian government. I have the visa they granted me a few days ago.”

Bangladesh opposition leader and two-term prime minister Zia was jailed in February for corrup­tion, but her party says the case is politically motivated by the rul­ing party in an election year. The Bangladeshi government has consistently denied the charges.

In his statement for the planned New Delhi briefing last week that was released to report­ers, Lord Carlile said Bangladesh had delayed granting him a visa and that he was grateful to the Indian media for the chance to “lay bare the unfair and unjust approach of the Bangladesh au­thorities to the case of my client”.

India’s foreign ministry spokesman, Raveesh Kumar, told a weekly media briefing in New Delhi that it was not acceptable for Carlile to use Indian soil to hold such a press conference when he could have done the same from London.

Kumar declined to answer what category of visa Lord Carlile should have held other than his “business” visa, but said he sus­pected there was an attempt to “create some kind of a problem” in the relationship between India and Bangladesh.

A Bangladesh foreign ministry spokesman declined to comment.

Zia’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) said it was disappointed that India sent Carlile back.

“He has not been allowed to enter Bangladesh so wanted to raise the issues about her cases from our good neighbour India,” BNP secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir said.

“Our leader is in jail for several months and it’s injustice done to her. He wanted to reveal the truth, but could not.”