Friday, April 27, 2007

Bangladesh: Interim government scrunitizing source of income of former Prime ministers - Hasina and Khaleda Zia

Bangladesh media is reporting that Former PM Sheikh Hasina will delay her return to Bangladesh - is it because of her schedule in London or perhaps the uncertainity of what will happen if she returns to Dhaka immediately?

The caretaker government did not completely let her off the hook yet when they withdrew a ban on her return to Bangladesh and annulled an arrest warrant on charges of Murder earlier this week.
On the contrary, they are scrutinizing her personal bank accounts which apparently have a balance of $425000.
Hasina claims that this money is donated by people around the world to ‘Bangabandhu memorial fund’ - a fund that is named after her assasinated Father Sheikh Mujibur Rahman - one of the founding fathers of Bangladesh.
While that maybe true, it would have been proper to put it in a different type of account instead of a personal account.
So I believe Hasina has a lot of answering to do in regards to the source of this money. Potentially more trouble for her. On top of that, the CTG can conveniently reissue the arrest warrant against her once she is back in Bangladesh.

The other Begum - Former PM Khaleda Zia, apparently has 48 accounts.
I dont know why would anyone need that many accounts for personal finances but it seems while Khaleda may not be going for a permanent exile to Saudi Arabia, she may willingly prolong her visit there to avoid harassment at home.
This could also very well be her chance to smuggle out her younger son Arafat Rahman to safety in Saudi Arabaia.
So while politicans may be rather vocal lately after what many see as the fiasco by the Interim government of trying to exile the two ladies abroad, It has not necessarily weakened the interim government that much.
It still has much aresenal left in its disposal to go after the two ladies within the legal framework to sideline them in the Political picture of Bangladesh.

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