A court in Dhaka on Tuesday set March 31 to hold hearing on charge framing in Niko graft case against BNP chairperson Begum Khaleda Zia and others. Judge Sheikh Hafizur Rahman of Dhaka 9th special judge court passed the order this morning at the newly built courtroom in front of Keraniganj Central Jail.

Today was set for holding hearing on charge framing, but the jail authorities couldn’t produce Khaleda Zia before the court as she is undergoing treatment at Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University (BSMMU) Hospital. The Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) filed the case against five including Begum Khaleda Zia with Tejgaon police station on December 9, 2007, for abusing power in signing a deal with Canadian company Niko for exploring and extracting gas.

The ACC on May 5, 2008, submitted the charge-sheet against 11 people including Khaleda Zia. The ACC accused them of incurring a loss of more than Taka 13 thousand crore of state exchequer by that deal. Khaleda is now behind the bar after being convicted in Zia Orphanage Trust graft case on February 8, 2018. She was sentenced to five-year imprisonment, which later enhanced to 10 by the High Court.