By IANS
Dhaka : Bangladesh’s jailed former prime minister Sheikh Hasina has expressed “no confidence” in a Dhaka High Court bench that gave an adverse verdict last week and was to hear three more graft cases against her.
Hasina’s counsels requested that their cases be transferred from a bench of Justices Nozrul Islam Chowdhury and Ataur Rahman Khan that on Sep 6 rejected her petition for quashing a corruption case related to the purchase of MiG-29s from Russia.
“We want the court to drop the three appeals from its list,” Hasina’s counsel Shafique Ahmed told the bench on Sunday.
The court granted his appeal, New Age newspaper said Monday. Ahmed later submitted a petition to the Appellate Division seeking permission to appeal against the Dhaka High Court’s verdict rejecting Hasina’s petition for quashing the MiG-29 graft case.
The case pertains to the purchase of combat aircraft from Russia in 2001. Hasina has denied the charge of having received a kickback, pointing out that a parliamentary committee too had found nothing wrong.
The court has a number of cases against Hasina that it has said it would deal with one after the other.
Like Hasina, her political rival and the other jailed former premier, Begum Khaleda Zia is also battling the government in the court.
Her lawyers said they would go to a higher court to challenge Zia’s detention and verdicts rejecting her bail pleas.
Zia was jailed on Sep 3 after being charged with extorting money for clearing business deals while she was in office. Both her sons, Tareq Rahman and Arafat Rahman Koko, are also in jail.