Staff Correspondent:

The High Court (HC) on Wednesday scheduled a hearing for Thursday (22 May) on a petition filed by Dr Zubaida Rahman, wife of BNP acting chairman Tarique Rahman, challenging her three-year jail sentence in a graft case.

The bench of Justice Md Khasruzzaman fixed the date for the hearing.

Lawyers Kaiser Kamal and Zakir Hossain Bhuiyan appeared in the court on behalf of Zubaida Rahman.

Earlier, on 14 May, Zubaida filed the petition with the HC seeking to overturn her sentence. The court accepted the petition for hearing and condoned a 587-day delay in filing the appeal.

On 2 August 2023, a Dhaka court sentenced Tarique Rahman to nine years in prison and Zubaida to three years in a case related to amassing wealth illegally and concealing information.

On 22 September last year, the Security Services Division under the Ministry of Home Affairs issued a gazette suspending Zubaida’s sentence for one year, following her petition and with the consent of the Ministry of Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs.

Zubaida left the country with her husband for London on 11 September 2008, where she lived for nearly 17 years before returning to Bangladesh on 6 May this year.

The Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) filed the case against the couple and another individual on 26 September 2007 at Dhaka’s Kafrul Police Station for concealing wealth information and amassing illegal assets.

The charges were formally pressed the following year.