Staff Reporter :
Khaleda Zia’s family members have submitted a petition to the Ministry of Home Affairs seeking a further extension of the suspension of BNP Chairperson Begum Khaleda Zia’s jail term and permission for her to receive better treatment abroad.
Begum Khaleda Zia’s younger brother, Shamim Eskander, submitted the petition on Sunday.
The petition states that Khaleda Zia’s life is at risk due to various complexities of her health. The former prime minister has no opportunity for better treatment in the country, so she needs to seek emergency medical treatment abroad.
Begum Khaleda Zia, a 78-year-old politician, has long been suffering from various ailments, including liver cirrhosis, arthritis, diabetes, kidney, lung, heart, and eye problems.
Earlier, the government extended the conditional suspension of Khaleda Zia’s jail term on September 18, 2023, for another six months. With this extension, her jail sentence suspension has been prolonged for the eighth time.
Initially, the government temporarily freed Khaleda Zia from jail through an executive order by suspending her sentence amid the coronavirus outbreak on March 25, 2020.
The suspension came with certain conditions, including that she would stay at her Gulshan house and would not leave the country. Since then, her release term has been extended every six months following the family’s plea.
The former prime minister was sent to the Old Dhaka Central Jail after
a lower court sentenced her to five years’ jail in the Zia Orphanage Trust graft case on February 8, 2018.
Later that year, she was found guilty and convicted in another corruption case.