Dhaka: Former Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and her family on Friday rejected the corruption verdicts against them, describing the cases as “malicious, politically motivated and without any proper foundation”. They alleged that the charges were engineered by political rivals and an unelected interim government to target them and the Awami League leadership.
A Dhaka court on Thursday sentenced Hasina to a total of 21 years in prison in three corruption cases linked to alleged irregularities in the allotment of plots under the Purbachal New City Project, awarding her seven years in each case to run consecutively. Her son Sajeeb Wazed Joy and daughter Saima Wazed Putul were also handed prison terms of five years each in one of the cases, along with fines.
In a joint statement released by Hasina and her family and shared on the Awami League’s social media handles, they said they “firmly deny all allegations of corruption”, claiming the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) is functioning under an unelected regime, using biased evidence and denying them a fair chance to defend themselves. They accused the Muhammad Yunus-led interim government of not only pursuing them but also trying to implicate “innocent family members” who are not active in politics.
The statement further charged that the interim administration had weakened key state institutions and imposed an “unconstitutional” ban that, they argued, effectively disenfranchised millions of ordinary Bangladeshis. It added that instead of pursuing “slanted” cases against the former ruling family, the ACC should investigate what they termed ongoing cronyism and corruption among those currently in power, insisting that genuine reform is impossible without a government elected with the people’s consent.
The Awami League, in a separate reaction, strongly condemned what it called a “baseless and fabricated” corruption case aimed at discrediting Hasina and the Bangabandhu family. The party alleged that the judiciary has been reduced to an instrument of the “illegal regime”, pointing to the swift dismissal of a multi-billion taka tax-evasion case against Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus while, in its view, harsher standards were applied over what it described as a legally acquired plot, solely to malign Hasina and her relatives.
(Inputs from IANS)