The High Court on Wednesday acquitted Bangladesh Nationalist Party acting chairman Tarique Rahman and his wife Zubaida Rahman in a corruption case, overturning a lower court verdict that had jailed the BNP leader for six years and his wife for three years in absentia during the ousted Awami League regime.
This was the last of the 84 cases against the BNP leader in which he was cleared by the court. This was also the fifth and final conviction in which Tarique was acquitted.
With the latest High Court order on Wednesday, Tarique Raham is now cleared of all cases lodged against him during the 2007-08 army-backed caretaker government and in the Awami League regime.
The case, filed by the Anti-Corruption Commission during the military-backed caretaker government in 2007, accused the couple of amassing illegal wealth and concealing information about a Tk 35 lakh fixed deposit.
Zubaida had claimed that the money was a gift from her mother, derived from rental income.
Lawyer Md Zakir Hossain Bhuyain, one of the counsels for Khaleda Zia鈥� family members, told 抖阴精品 that Wednesday鈥檚 High Court acquittal effectively nullified all 84 politically-motivated cases against Tarique.
He said that the now-overturned case was the only one in which a conviction of six years鈥� imprisonment had remained active.
Tarique Rahman鈥檚 convictions in four other cases, including two over murder and explosives charges linked to the August 21, 2004 grenade attack on an Awami League rally in Dhaka, and one each involving money laundering and the Zia Orphanage Trust, were earlier quashed following appeals by his co-accused persons.
鈥楽o far as we know, no case remains pending in court against Tarique Rahman. He has been cleared of all charges following the fall of the Awami League regime on August 5, 2024, amid a student-led mass uprising,鈥� said Zakir.聽
The High Court bench of Justice Md Khasruzzaman delivered the judgment on Wednesday, allowing Zubaida Rahman鈥檚 delayed appeal filed 587 days after the legal deadline.
Under the law, convicts are required to file appeals within 30 days of a verdict.
Although Tarique did not file an appeal and remains a fugitive, he received the benefit of the acquittal based on recent precedents set by the Appellate Division in similar cases involving Tarique鈥檚 co-accused persons, said ACC lawyer Asif Hasan.
Zubaida鈥檚 counsel SM Shajahan argued that the charges were politically motivated, originating during the 2007鈥�2008 anti-corruption crackdown during the army-backed caretaker government.
Shajahan told reporters that, despite 17 years of investigation during the Awami League regime, there was no trace of any foreign assets in Tarique鈥檚 name.
Zubaida returned to Dhaka on May 6 this year, after staying 16 years abroad, along with her mother-in-law and BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia.
Ahead of her return, the Security Services Division of the Ministry of Home Affairs suspended her sentence in the lone case against her, for one year by an executive order, contingent upon her surrender and filing of an appeal.
On May 13, the High Court formally condoned the delay in her appeal and accepted her plea for legal redress.
Tarique, arrested during the 2007 crackdown, was released on bail in September 2008 for treatment and has since been living in London.
The charges accused Tarique of concealing wealth worth Tk 2.16 crore in his asset declaration to the ACC and illegally acquiring an additional Tk 2.74 crore.
Tarique was jailed for six years while Zubaida was sentenced to three years in prison, in their absence by Dhaka鈥檚 senior special judge Md Asaduzzaman in August 2023.
Zubaida鈥檚 mother Syeda Iqbal Mand Banu was also an accused in the case as an abettor.
The Appellate Division, after hearing her writ petition, scrapped the trial proceedings of a corruption case against her in July 2017.
