Court Correspondent
The Special Judge Court-3 of Dhaka on Wednesday deferred the hearing on charge framing in the Gatco graft case against 21 people including BNP Chairperson Begum Khaleda Zia, to July 14.Judge Abu Ahmed Jamadar of the court also asked the accused people to appear before court on the day. The court fixed the new date following an application filed the lawyers of Khaleda Zia.
Earlier, on February 23, the same court directed the accused to appear before his court on April 13. On August 5, last year, a bench of the High Court comprising Justice Md Nuruzzaman and Justice Abdur Rob rejected two writ petitions of Khaleda Zia. She filed the petitions challenging the legality of the graft case lodged under the Emergency Power Act in September of 2007.
On September 2, 2007, the Anti Corruption Commission (ACC) filed the Gatco graft case against Khaleda Zia, her younger son late Arafat Rahman Koko, Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh Ameer Motiur Rahman Nizami and 10 others for causing loss of Tk 145.64 crore to the national exchequer, allegedly by awarding the contract of container handling at the Chittagong port and the Inland Container Depot of Dhaka to Gatco.
