Decision over sending Khaleda abroad within a short time: Anisul

Desk News :: Law minister Anisul Huq on Thursday said that the home minister had forwarded an application of the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party chairperson Khaleda Zia’s family seeking the government’s permission to take her abroad for medical treatment.

The minister, talking to media in Dhaka, said that the decision over the matter would be taken within a short time.

Earlier on the day, home minister Asaduzzaman Khan told reporters that Khaleda Zia’s brother Shamim Iskander had submitted an application to the government to send the former prime minister Khaleda Zia abroad for better treatment.

The 78-year-old former prime minister has been suffering from various ailments, including liver cirrhosis, arthritis, diabetes, kidney, lung, heart, and eye problems.

Since her conditional release in 2020, the BNP chief has been receiving treatment at the hospital under a medical board headed by cardiologist professor Shahabuddin Talukder.

On August 9, Khaleda Zia was admitted to Evercare Hospital after falling seriously ill at her Gulshan residence Feroza by the decision of her medical board.

Khaleda was sent to the Old Dhaka Jail after a lower court sentenced her to five years’ imprisonment in the Zia Orphanage Trust corruption case on February 8, 2018. Later, she was found guilty in another corruption case the same year.

Amid the coronavirus outbreak, the government temporarily freed Khaleda Zia from jail through an executive order suspending her sentence on March 25, 2020, with the condition that she stay in her Gulshan house and not leave the country.