Khaleda Zia's jail term suspension extended for six months more

 
The government on Monday extended the suspension of jail term of the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) Chairperson Khaleda Zia for six more months.

The Security Service Department of the home ministry issued a gazette notification in this regard. The notification is signed by deputy secretary Mohammad Abu Sayed Mollah.

According to the gazette notification, Khaleda Zia will have to receive treatment staying at her own residence in Dhaka and will not be able to travel abroad. Khaleda's conditional release from jail, suspending her sentences in two corruption cases, was earlier extended by six months on March 23 which will end on September 24.

The government has so far extended the convicted former prime minister's conditional release eight times, with the last extension on March 12, 2023.

Amid the coronavirus outbreak, the government temporarily freed Khaleda Zia from jail through an executive order by suspending her sentence on March 25, 2020, with conditions 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.

Khaleda was sent to the Old Dhaka Central Jail as a lower court sentenced her to five years' imprisonment in the Zia Orphanage Trust corruption case on February 8, 2018. Later, she was found guilty and convicted in another corruption case the same year.

Khaleda, a 78-year-old former prime minister, has long been suffering from various ailments, including liver cirrhosis, arthritis, diabetes, kidney, lungs, heart, eye problems and post-Covid complications.