High Court stays trial of Zia in Niko graft case

The High Court (HC) yesterday stayed the trial proceedings against Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) chairperson and former PM Khaleda Zia in Niko graft case.An HC bench comprising Justice Sheikh Abdul Awal and Justice Md Khashruzzaman passed the order following a petition filed by Zia seeking a stay on the trial proceeding of the case.The court also issued a ruling asking the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) to explain why the trial proceedings against the BNP chief should not be scrapped.The HC stayed proceedings of the graft case at the trial court until the disposal of the ruling, said Zia’s lawyer Mahbub Uddin Khokon. The ACC filed the case on December 9, 2007 accusing Zia and several others of abusing power to award a gas exploration and extraction deal to Canadian company Niko when she was prime minister between 2001 and 2006.Later on May 5, 2008, it submitted charge-sheet against 11 people. In the meantime, police submitted charge-sheets against Zia and 77 others in two cases of arson attacks which killed sleeping passengers on a bus at Chauddagram in Comilla.The Chauddagram police submitted the charge-sheets to the judicial magistrate court of Comilla. BNP senior leaders M K Anwar, Ruhul Kabir Rizvi, Rafiqul Islam Mia and Shaukat Mahmood and Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami’s leader Abdullah Mohammad Taher are among the accused in the cases.Rizvi at the briefing alleged that plain-clothes police again arrested BNP joint secretary general Habib-un-Nabi Khan Sohel at jail gate soon after he got released completing all legal formalities from higher court.He said BNP is yet to be officially informed by the law enforcers about the arrest of Sohel.Rizvi sought intervention of the chief justice in the matter. During the anti-government movement, on February 3, 2015, protesters hurled petrol bomb on a running bus at Miar Bazar at Chauddagram.At least 20 people were injured in the attack. Eight of the injured later died.Police filed two cases of arson in this connection. Zia was named as an instigator in both the cases.