President Md Shahabuddin remitted the sentences of former prime minister and Bangladesh Nationalist Party chairperson Khaleda Zia on Tuesday, paving the way for her release, a day after her political rival Sheikh Hasina resigned from the post of prime minister and fled the country.
A gazette notification by the home ministry said that the president had exempted聽 the punishment awarded to the ex-prime minister in two cases and that she was released.
Earlier on Monday, addressing the nation, president Shahabuddin said that a decision was taken to release the jailed former prime minister and the key opposition聽leader.
The decision was taken in a meeting with representatives of different political parties, civil society members, and the chief of three defence services at Bangabhaban, said the president.
On Tuesday, a gazette notification issued by the law ministry said that Khaleda Zia鈥檚 conviction, given by a Dhaka special court and later by a High Court bench, was remitted by the president under Article 49 of the constitution.
The article reads, 鈥楾he President shall have power to grant pardons, reprieves, and respites and to remit, suspend or commute any sentence passed by any court, tribunal or other authority.鈥�
BNP standing committee member Selima Islam told 抖阴精品 that the release of Khaleda Zia was a big achievement of the people of Bangladesh.
鈥楾he government was forced to release her [Khaleda] amid the democracy-loving student and people鈥檚 movement,鈥� she said.聽
Three-time former prime minister Khaleda Zia, 79, was sent to the old Dhaka jail after a lower court sentenced her to five years imprisonment in the Zia Orphanage Trust corruption case on February 8,聽2018.
Later in the same year, she was found guilty in another corruption case.
Amid the coronavirus outbreak, the government temporarily freed Khaleda from jail through an executive order suspending her sentence on March 25, 2020, on the condition that she would stay in her Gulshan house and would not leave the聽country.
Later, her sentence was suspended several times, for a duration of six months each time under the same conditions.
Khaleda Zia has been suffering from various ailments, including three blockages in her heart.
Khaleda is currently undergoing treatment at Evercare Hospital in Dhaka.
She was rushed to the hospital on June 22 after her condition had deteriorated.
A pacemaker was fitted in Khaleda鈥檚 heart at the hospital on June 23. The former prime minister is also suffering from arthritis, liver, and lung complications, while she has high diabetes.
Since her conditional release from prison in 2020, the BNP chief has been receiving medical care at the hospital under the supervision of a medical board headed by cardiologist Professor Shahabuddin Talukder.
Khaleda鈥檚 doctors have been advising sending her abroad since she was diagnosed with liver cirrhosis in November 2021.
On October 26, last year, three US specialist doctors completed a hepatic procedure to stop water accumulation in her stomach and chest and bleeding in her liver.
The government denied BNP鈥檚 and Khaleda鈥檚 family鈥檚 requests to allow her treatment abroad.
