Staff Correspondent:

Dr Zubaida Rahman, wife of BNP acting chairman Tarique Rahman, on Tuesday submitted an appeal with the High Court (HC) against her three-year jail sentence in a graft case.

The bench of Justice Md Khasruzzaman accepted the petition for hearing and condoned a 587-day delay in filing the appeal.

Advocate Zainul Abedin and Kayser Kamal stood for Zubaida while Asif Hasan represented the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) during the hearing in the court.

On August 2 in 2023, a Dhaka court sentenced Tarique to nine years in prison and Zubaida to three years in case over amassing assets through illegal means and concealing the information.

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

She had left the country with her husband for London on September 11, 2008 and stayed there for around 17 years and finally returned home on May 6 this year.

She submitted the appeal which was included in the court’s ‘cause list’ on Tuesday (May 13).

The ACC filed the case against three people including the couple on September 26, 2007, with Dhaka’s Kafrul police station for concealing wealth information and amassing illegal assets.

The charges were pressed the following year.