By IANS
Dhaka : Bangladesh’s former president H.M. Ershad has been acquitted in a gold smuggling case, a trial that went on for 16 years and saw 17 different judges.
Judge Mohammad Abul Bashar of the first additional metropolitan sessions judge’s court handed down the verdict Tuesday in Ershad’s presence in a packed courtroom.
The order in the case, which involved French and German nationals, had been adjourned seven times for different reasons, The Daily Star said Wednesday.
Trial in the case had begun when Ershad was still in office. His name was added in 1991 to the list after he was deposed the year before.
This was one of the many cases against Ershad, 77, who has spent five years in jail.
All along, however, he has retained his political base and has been a lawmaker and chief of the Jatiya Party that has split, with one of the factions being led by his wife Rowshan.
Ershad recently said he was quitting day-to-day politics after the ninth general election was called off and the country was placed under a national emergency in January this year.
In August and September last year, he was acquitted in four graft cases following the announcement that he was joining the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) led four-party alliance of then prime minister Khaleda Zia.
This was part of a deal that fell through when Ershad switched sides and joined an alliance led by Zia’s rival Sheikh Hasina.
Both the women leaders are now in jail on charges of corruption.
Ershad was a former army chief who formally took power in 1982 and remains the longest-serving president of Bangladesh.