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Khaleda Zia freed from jail

DHAKA: The former Bangladesh Prime Minister and Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) leader, Khaleda Zia, was released from prison on Thursday. She was arrested last year on graft charges.

After her release, Ms. Zia said her party would join the talks with the caretaker government to hold the next elections. To the utter surprise of her party-workers, Ms. Zia said her elder son Tarique Rahman — a senior joint secretary-general of BNP and who was released last week — would stay away from politics for two years, until he recovers from illness.

Ms. Zia has been released two months after the release of the former Premier, Sheikh Hasina, chief of the Awami League (AL). Ms. Hasina is now in the U.S. for medical treatment. Earlier in the day, Ms. Zia was greeted by party-workers as she stepped out of the special jail in the Parliament complex. After visiting Mr. Rahman, who has been admitted to a hospital, Ms. Zia went to the party headquarters, which has remained shut since an Emergency was imposed in January 2007.

Ms. Zia and her younger son Arafat Rahman Coco were arrested on September 3 last year. She has been granted bail in all the cases.

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