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Zia faces new violence charges

FORMER Bangladesh prime minister Khaleda Zia was named in a Dhaka court last weekend as the “instigator of violence” in two fresh charg­ es that relate to violence dur­ing last year’s anti­government protests .

Zia and 50 other leaders and activists of the opposition Bangladesh National Party (BNP) were charged in the chief metropolitan magis­trate’s court last sunday (29).


More than 100 people were killed in arson at­tacks on buses in the capital during a three month nationwide blockade called by an alliance led by the BNP.

With the fresh alle­gations, the 60­ year­ old Zia faces a total of six charges over the 2015 violence.

Police and court officials said that one of the fresh two cas­es accused Zia of “instigating” party activists to torch two buses in Dhaka on Feb­ruary 10 and March 3, 2015.

Metropolitan magistrate Imdadul Haque set Tuesday (31) and Wednesday (1) for the approval and signing of the charge sheets, court police official Mirash Uddin said.

Zia is already facing a slew of graft cases.

In April, a court rejected two petitions filed by Zia, who appeared before it in a corruption case which accus­es her of embezzling over $400,000 (£273,402) from a trust when she was the prime minister from 2001­2006.

The BNP accused the gov­ernment of prime minister sheikh Hasina of executing a plan to drive the party chief out of politics by implicating her in “false cases”.

Hasina has promised jus­tice for the victims of vio­lence, saying the BNP and its ally, the Jamaat­e­Islami, “unleashed the violence in the name of protests to destabilise the country”.

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