The court has fixed October 20 for the hearing of the case against 15 people including former prime minister and BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia in the GATCO corruption case. On Tuesday (October 8), Dhaka's number three special judge Abu Taher gave this order.

Advertisement

On this day, the day was fixed for the hearing of the charge sheet. On this day, Khaleda's lawyer filed an appearance on behalf of Zia. The accused then applied for time to adjourn the hearing of the charge sheet. At the end of the hearing, the judge fixed the date of filing the charges on October 20.

Khaleda Zia's lawyer Ziauddin Zia confirmed the matter. Begum Khaleda Zia surrendered and got bail in this case on April 5, 2016.

According to the statement of the case, on September 2, 2007, Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) deputy director Golam Shahriar filed a GATCO corruption case against 13 people at Tejgaon police station. Later, on May 13, 2008, ACC Deputy Director Md filed a charge sheet against 24 people including Khaleda Zia in the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate (CMM) court of Dhaka. Zahirul Huda.

Among the 24 accused in the case, Khaleda Zia's younger son Arafat Rahman Koko, former Finance Minister Saifur Rahman, former BNP Secretary General Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan, Jamaat's late Amir Matiur Rahman Nizami and former State Energy Minister AKM Mosharraf Hossain have died. So their names have been dropped from the case.

It is said in the complaint of the case that the defendants violated the terms of the tender and misused their power to sign the contract with the contracting company GATCO, resulting in a financial loss of 14 crore 56 lakh 37 thousand 616 rupees to the government. Apart from this, it is said in the charge sheet that Arafat Rahman Koko and Ismail Hossain Simon illegally took financial benefits of Tk.