Tarique Rahman: Bangladesh's exiled opposition leader sentenced in absentia for graft

A Bangladesh court sentenced the country's exiled opposition leader and his wife in absentia over corruption charges on Wednesday, the news agency AFP reported citing lawyers.

After the court's verdict, thousands of supporters of the Bangladeshi leader took to the streets to stage demonstrations calling the trial politically motivated.

55-year-old Tarique Rahman, who is the acting chairman of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), was sentenced to nine years in prison on Wednesday and his wife Zubaida Rahman, was handed a three-year sentence, Anti-Corruption Commission lawyer Khushid Alam Khan told news agency AFP.

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"He was sentenced to nine years in jail for concealing income and accumulating wealth disproportionate to his income, and his wife was sentenced to three years in jail for abetting her husband," Khan said.

BNP lawyer Masud Ahmed Talukder called the sentence "100 per cent politically motivated", saying the case was meant to keep Tarique Rahman "off from politics ahead of the December-January general election".

What are the protesters demanding?

The opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and its allies have staged multiple protests since last year and called for PM Hasina to step down. They have also demanded that the country hold general elections under a caretaker government.

Senior police official Rawshanul Huq Saikat said that around a thousand BNP supporters rallied outside party headquarters in Dhaka after the Rahmans' sentencing.

BNP’s demand to hold the next election, due in January 2024, by a neutral caretaker government has since been rejected by the incumbent government.

“BNP’s one-point demand is the restoration of democracy in Bangladesh....This can only be achieved through a free and fair election, which is not possible under the current regime,” senior BNP leader Abdul Moyeen Khan told Reuters.

He added, “This government must resign and make way for a free and fair election under an interim government, only through that we can restore a people's government in Bangladesh.”

Western governments have voiced concern over the political climate in Bangladesh, where the ruling party dominates the legislature and runs it virtually as a rubber stamp.

Tarique Rahman, who is based in London since the year 2008, had already been sentenced to life imprisonment in the year 2018 for his involvement in a 2004 grenade attack that claimed the lives of more than 20 people during a political rally for then-opposition leader Hasina. Rahman's mother Khaleda Zia was premier at the time.

Two-time former premier Zia is under effective house arrest after she was sentenced to 17 years in jail in two separate graft cases in 2018.

(With inputs from agencies)

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