By IANS,
Dhaka : In Bangladesh, where politics polarises virtually everything, a prominent lawyer who defends both Sheikh Hasina and Khaleda Zia in numerous graft cases, has urged the warring former prime ministers to stop bickering and promote democracy.
Haq is in a unique position to deliver political counsel as well to the two women leaders whose supporters resumed sniping at each other even as they fight the current caretaker government.
Haq, who is the chief counsel for the two arch rivals, Tuesday urged them to sit together and stop the mud-slinging between the two parties, New Age newspaper said.
“They should sit together in the interest of the country and democracy. They can meet at my place,” Haq told reporters after obtaining bail for Zia for three months in two of the corruption cases.
The bail in these cases, last of a series, had raised hopes of Zia being released after over a year – she has been detained since Sep 3 last year. This raised possibility of Zia’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) participating in the elections.
However, the Anti Corruption Commission (ACC) set up by the government appealed against her bail even as the government works to prepare for the parliamentary polls in Dec this year.
Haq, who has been defending both Khaleda and Hasina, the Awami League’s (AL) president, and also other top leaders of both the parties in the courts since proclamation of the state of emergency on Jan 11, 2007, urged the parties to stop the vendetta against each other.
“Enough is enough. There has been enough squabbling. The AL and the BNP have to stop this and work together in the interest of the country,” he said.
He also urged the leaders of both the parties to behave like sensible politicians. “They have to abandon sleaze, swindling and acrimony and must walk on the path of democracy,” he added.
Asked why he was defending both AL and BNP leaders, including Hasina and Khaleda, the lawyer said: “I am defending them as a lawyer. I do not see them as AL or BNP men, but as defendants”.