HC sets hearing dates in Aug for 2 graft cases against Hasina
Staff Correspondent
The High Court (HC) yesterday set August 1 and 7 for hearing on Awami League (AL) President Sheikh Hasina's petitions for quashing two graft cases against her regarding the purchase of MiG-29 fighters and a frigate. The decision followed a sudden move by the military-backed interim government to revive the years-old cases against the former premier. Deputy Attorney General Golam Mohammad Chowdhury on Monday petitioned an HC bench for the hearing dates. Earlier in 2003, the HC stayed proceedings of the cases in response to her appeals. The now defunct Bureau of Anti-Corruption filed a case for irregularities in the MiG-29 purchase against Hasina and four others with the Tejgaon Police Station on December 11, 2001. The following year it filed another graft case against her and five others with the same police station. The second case relates to frigate purchase. During her stint as the prime minister between 1996 and 2001, the government procured eight MiG-29 fighters from Russia for the air force and a frigate from South Korea for the navy. In the first information reports, the complainant alleged that the government had to incur a loss of Tk 447 crore in the buying of frigate and Tk 700 crore in eight MiG-29s. In 2003, charges were pressed against Hasina and others in the two cases and charge sheets were submitted before the court. The HC on May 16 set July 25 to hear the AL chief's petition for cancelling the proceedings in the four-and-a-half-year old Meghnaghat Power plant graft case against her.
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