Bangladesh Opposition Chief to Face Corruption Trial

Bangladesh opposition leader Khaleda Zia was ordered Wednesday to stand trial over charges that she and her associates embezzled more than $650,000 in a case that could see her jailed for life.

The two-time former premier will go on trial from April 21, according to lawyers at a hearing of a special anti-corruption court in Dhaka which was held only weeks after her arch rival Sheikh Hasina was re-elected.

Zia's centre-right Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) has vowed to topple Hasina's Awami League government after boycotting the January 5 election which it denounced as a farce.

BNP deputy leader Falkrul Islam Alamgir and four other senior party figures were sent to jail last week for violence in the run-up to the January contest which was the bloodiest in Bangladesh's short history.

Prosecutors say Zia and three of her co-accused siphoned off 31.5 million taka (about $400,000) from a charitable trust named after her late husband Ziaur Rahman, a former president who was assassinated in 1981.

She is also accused of leading a group of five people, including her eldest son Tarique Rahman, in embezzling 21.5 million taka ($270,00), funds which were meant to go to orphanage set up in memory of her late husband, prosecutor Mosharraf Hossain told AFP.

The charges date back to Zia's last term as prime minister from 2001-06 and can carry a life sentence, Hossain added.

Hundreds of Zia's supporters and lawyers staged noisy protests at the court complex in Dhaka's Old City as judge Basudev Roy ordered a clerk to read out the charges against the 69-year-old Zia, who was present and dressed in a traditional silk sari.

The court was twice forced to go into recess due to protests inside the tribunal after the judge rejected an adjournment plea by the defense.

Zia's lawyer Masud Ahmed Talukder said the charges, which were first drawn up by the country's anti-graft agency in 2008, were "false and fabricated" and are part of a conspiracy to destroy Zia and her family.

"The court acted like a wing of the ruling party. It broke its own rules by charging her without questioning her. They were charged at the order of the government," he told AFP.

Talukder said that although Zia has been named in several other cases, this was "the first time she was formally charged and a court ordered her to face trial since the Awami League came to power" in 2009.

Prosecutor Hossain however denied any suggestion that the charges were politically-motivated.

"She abused her power when she was prime minister," he said.

Zia, who first became premier in 1991, has a famously poisonous relationship with Hasina -- an enmity which dates back three decades.

She was kept under de facto house arrest for more than a week before the January 5 polls.

Hasina was overwhelmingly re-elected in what was effectively a one-horse race after the BNP and 18 other opposition parties refused to field candidates over rigging fears.

Nearly 200 people died in political violence in the run-up to the election as the opposition and security forces fought pitched battles.

Police detained thousands of opposition officials and supporters and brought charges of violence against tens of thousands of BNP followers.

Zia also spent nearly two years behind bars in 2007-08 when both she and Hasina were detained by a military-backed government as part of a crackdown on corruption. Both women were eventually freed without charge.