DHAKA, Bangladesh: The Bangladeshi opposition leader Khaleda Zia has gone on trial over charges of embezzlement that could see her jailed for life.
“After so many delays we’ve finally been able to start the trial today,” the lead prosecutor Mosharraf Hussain told reporters on Monday.
The two-time prime minister and the leader of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) Khaleda Zia and three co-accused took 31.5m taka (about $400,000) from a charitable trust named after former president Ziaur Rahman, her late husband who was assassinated in 1981.
Zia and four others including her son Tarique Rahman are also accused of embezzling 21.5 million taka – money which prosecutors say should have gone to an orphanage set up in memory of her late husband.
However, Zia has called the charges politically motivated and aimed at destroying the BNP, which has vowed to topple the government of her arch rival Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.
