Bangladesh’s former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia left for London on Tuesday night for medical treatment.
Zia, a political rival of ousted PM Sheikh Hasina, went abroad on a special air ambulance sent by Qatar’s emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani.
The 79-year-old’s personal physician AZM Zahid Hossain told news agency AP that Qatar’s emir arranged a special aircraft with medical facilities for the former prime minister.
Enamul Haque Chowdhury, a close aide of Zia, told reporters that the air ambulance flew Zia to London, where her eldest son Tarqique Rahman has been in exile since 2007. Rahman is also the acting chairman of Zia’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and is expected to lead the party toward the election.
Zia’s planned visit to London comes when Dhaka is embroiled in uncertainty, with Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus-led interim government in charge of the country since Hasina’s ouster on August 5 last year.
The BNP has been negotiating with the Yunus-led government for a quick election.
The party initially demanded polls in three months, but later said it wanted to allow the interim government more time. However, the party is now pressing for an election sometime this year.
Zia was sentenced to 17 years in jail under Hasina’s rule in two corruption cases stemming from 2001-2006 when she was prime minister.
In November, easing the way for Zia’s political comeback, the Bangladesh high court acquitted the former prime minister severing a 7-year sentence in a corruption case.
Zia was lodged in the Old Dhaka Central Jail on February 8, 2018, after a special court sentenced her to five years in prison in the Zia Orphanage Trust corruption case.
On October 30, 2018, the high court raised her punishment to 10 years. However, later, she was convicted in the Zia Charitable Trust corruption case.
Amid the Covid outbreak, the government temporarily released Zia from jail after 776 days through an executive order, suspending her sentence on March 25, 2020, with conditions that she would stay in her Gulshan house and not leave the country.
After Sheikh Hasina was ousted from Bangladesh in the wake of a mass uprising against her government, Zia was completely freed by an order of Bangladesh President Mohammed Shahabuddin.
Zia served as the prime minister of Bangladesh from March 1991 to March 1996, and again from June 2001 to October 2006.