By IANS,
Dhaka : Continuing with its anti-graft drive, Bangladesh’s caretaker government has sued former prime minister Khaleda Zia and her son Tarique Rahman for allegedly drawing money for a non-existent orphanage.
The Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) Thursday filed another case against the two, now in jail, and five others for embezzling over 21 million takas ($350,000) by forming an eyewash establishment named Zia Orphanage Trust, named after Khaleda Zia’s late husband, the assassinated former president Ziaur Rahman.
According to the case, the body existed “only on paper”, The Daily Star reported. The other five accused in the case are all former lawmakers of the Zia-led Bangladesh Nationalist Party of which Tarique was a senior official.
The alleged embezzlement took place in June 1991, when Zia had just begun her first term as the prime minister. Money was drawn between 1991 and 1993.
In the following 13 years, between 1993 and April 2006, there was no activity of the trust and the amount saved in the account of the trust grew to 33.7 million takas (approx $560,000) with accrued interest.
The case was filed after the ACC interrogated Zia, now detained in a special jail, and her sons Tarique Rahman and Arafat Rahman Koko, a member of the Zia Orphanage Trust, regarding the alleged fund embezzlement.
Khaleda is an accused in three graft cases; Tarique is accused in 15 other cases.