Dhaka, Dec 1 The Awami League on Monday rejected the verdict by a Dhaka court against former Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and her family members in a case filed by the country’s Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC), calling the outcome “entirely predictable”.
Slamming the Muhammad Yunus-led interim government, the party alleged that the ruling, like other recent ACC cases, shows that the commission has been weaponised for political purposes by “desperate, unelected men”.
The remarks came after a Dhaka court on Monday sentenced Hasina to five years in prison over irregularities in the allocation of plots under the Purbachal New Town project.
Additionally, Hasina’s sister, Sheikh Rehana, was handed a seven-year sentence, while her niece, British MP Tulip Siddiq, received two years’ imprisonment.
“No persuasive evidence of corruption was heard at the ACC, because none exists. Defendants did not have proper legal representation at the ACC and were judged in absentia. The process fails to pass any reasonable test of judicial fairness — a point that has been made forcefully by both local and international legal experts,” read a statement issued by the Awami League.
According to the party, unelected Yunus has broadened his personal vendetta against Hasina and, despite having no evidence, accused elected officials outside the country. This judicial and diplomatic fiasco, it said, is self-defeating and damaging to the country’s international standing.
“No country is free from corruption. But corruption needs to be investigated in a way that is not itself corrupt. The ACC has failed that test today. It is controlled by an unelected government run by the Awami League’s political opponents. It has exclusively targeted members of the Awami League, or those seen to be sympathetic to our party, and done nothing to prosecute or even investigate the cronyism that has escalated in Bangladesh since Muhammad Yunus and his so-called interim government took power,” the Awami League quoted Hasina as saying following the verdict.
She claimed that Yunus is using the ACC as a “smokescreen” to distract attention from his own governance failings.
“He is also using it to suppress a political party that was elected nine times since Independence, including the last time Bangladeshis were allowed to go to the polls. He recently banned the Awami League from taking part in next year’s elections – thus disenfranchising millions of voters and undermining our troubled country’s chances of achieving a genuine political reconciliation,” she added.
The former PM stated that the verdict serves only the interests of “Yunus and his ragtag coalition of extremists and opportunists”, warning that the entire affair risks damaging Bangladesh’s standing with key trading partners.
(Auto generated news from IANS Feed. This has not been edited by enewstime desk)
