Less than 24 hours after Sheikh Hasina was ousted and fled the country, the Bangladesh President ordered the release of former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia. The 78-year-old is in poor health and confined to a hospital after she was sentenced to 17 years in prison for a graft case in 2018.
Who is Khaleda Zia?
- Born on August 15, 1945, in Bengal’s Jalpaiguri.
- Khaleda is Bangladesh’s first female Prime Minister and the second female prime minister in the Muslim world after Pakistan’s Benazir Bhutto.
- Khaleda’s political career began after her husband Ziaur Rahman, who was President of Bangladesh from 1977 to 1981 and formed the Bangladesh Nationalist Party in 1978, was assassinated.
- She served as the prime minister for a second term from 2001 to 2006. After her government’s term ended in 2006, political turmoil postponed the January 2007 elections, leading to a military takeover of the caretaker government.According to media reports, the president’s press team said in a statement that a meeting led by Shahabuddin had “decided unanimously to free Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) chairperson Begum Khaleda Zia immediately.”
Press release from the Presidents office of Bangladesh reads,
“The meeting held unanimously decided to release @bdbnp78 Chairperson Begum Khaleda Zia. Additionally, it was decided to release all detainees who were arrested in various cases related to the student against… pic.twitter.com/CzyLpRx7l1
— Sami (@ZulkarnainSaer) August 5, 2024
Army Chief Waker-Uz-Zaman, the heads of the navy and air force, and top leaders from opposition parties, including the BNP and Jamaat-e-Islami, attended the meeting.
