Four more prosecution witnesses testified yesterday before the court against BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia and three others testified in the Zia Charitable Trust case.
Judge Abu Ahmad Jamadar of Dhaka Special Judge’s Court-3 recorded the depositions of the four witnesses and adjourned trial proceedings till October 29 for the next hearing in the Zia Orphanage Trust and Zia Charitable Trust cases.
Both cases are being tried at the makeshift court set up amid tight security at the Central Jail parade grounds in Bakshibazar of the capital.
The four witnesses are Walid Ahmed, a cashier of the Sonali Bank Cantonment branch, Mamun-uz-Zaman, senior officer of the Kushtia branch of Shahjalal Islami Bank, Saiful Islam, former senior officer of Metro Makers and Developers Ltd, and Chowdhury MN Alam, Assistant Director of the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC).
Aside from them, the court also recorded the depositions of 17 out of 36 prosecution witnesses, including the complainant of the case, Harun-ur-Rashid, an ACC deputy director in the Zia Charitable Trust case.
Defence counsels cross-examined three prosecution witnesses, Noshad Mahmud, Amirul Islam and Alok Kanti Chakraborty, all of whom had been posted as officials in the Motijheel branch of Standard Chartered Bank on September 29, 2011, before recording their depositions.
Khaleda’s counsel Abdur Razzak Khan and defence lawyers Aminul Islam and TM Akbar Hossain cross-examined the three men from 10:35am to 11:10am yesterday. They had testified before the court on October 15.
At the beginning of yesterday’s hearing, Khaleda’s lawyer Md Sanaullah Miah filed two separate petitions for her non-appearance in the cases.
In the petitions, the defence counsels stated that the BNP chief could not appear before the court as she is abroad for treatment. The court accepted the petitions.
On March 19, 2014, the special judges’ court framed charges against Khaleda Zia and Tarique Rahman, among nine accused in the cases, while the court started recording depositions of witnesses on September 22 the same year in two graft cases.
Khaleda Zia, her eldest son Tarique Rahman, BNP founder Ziaur Rahman’s nephew Mominur Rahman, Khaleda’s former principal secretary Kamal Uddin Siddiqui, BNP’s former lawmaker Kazi Salimul Haque Kamal and businessman Sharfuddin Ahmed are accused in the Zia Orphanage Trust case.
The three other accused are Harris Chowdhury, Khaleda’s former political secretary, Ziaul Islam Munna, the assistant private secretary (APS) of Harris, and Monirul Islam Khan, the APS of former DCC mayor Sadeque Hossain Khoka.
On July 3, 2008, the ACC filed the Zia Orphanage Trust graft case with Ramna police station for the embezzlement of over Tk2.1 crore through the formation of a “fake” trust which existed only on paper.
The anti-graft watchdog filed another case with Tejgaon police station on August 8, 2011 accusing four people, including Khaleda Zia, of abusing power in setting up the Zia Charitable Trust.
