ACC moves to revive GATCO graft case against BNP chief Khaleda Zia

The Anti Corruption Commission (ACC) has moved to revive proceedings of the GATCO corruption case against BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia, which the High Court had stopped.

It filed a plea on Tuesday for hearing on a High Court rule regarding the legality of including the case under the Emergency Rule Act. On Tuesday, another High Court bench instructed the matter to be included on the Feb 4 cause list.

ACC lawyer Khurshid Alam Khan said hearing on the High Court order that froze the case's proceedings following another plea by the former prime minister might be included on Thursday's cause list.

Following an ACC plea, the matter of the HC rule was forwarded to the bench of justices Md Moinul Islam Chowdhury and JBM Hassan for hearing. But the court instructed that it be set aside for Feb 4 as Khaleda's lawyer Mahbubuddin Khokan pleaded for time.

The move to revive the case's proceedings, after seven years, comes at a time when Khaleda has been named in several cases of violence during the BNP's ongoing blockade as the 'instigator'.

On top of that, recording of witness testimonies are going on in the Zia Charitable Trust and Zia Orphanage Trust graft cases by the ACC.

In 2008, a High Court bench issued a rule and stayed the trial's proceedings after hearing a petition of the BNP chief.

The ACC filed the GATCO corruption case on Sept 2, 2007, during the military-installed caretaker regime against Khaleda, her youngest son Arafat Rahman Coco and 11 others.

The BNP chief and Coco, who died last Saturday in Malaysia, were arrested the next day at their cantonment home. The case was included under the Emergency Rule Act on Sept 18 the same year.

According to the case documents, the defendants illegally awarded the contract of container handling at the Chittagong port and the Dhaka's Inland Container Depot to a certain firm GATCO, causing the state to count Tk 145.64 million in losses.

On Sept 27, 2007, Khaleda and Coco filed two petitions with the High Court challenging the legality of including the case under the Emergency Rule Act and seeking a stay order on the trial's proceedings.

Three days later, the High Court stayed the proceedings and issued a rule asking why the case's inclusion under the Act would not be declared illegal. The Appellate Division later scrapped the stay order.

In 2008, Khaleda filed another petition challenging the legality of the case filed under the ACC Act, following which the High Court once again stayed the case's proceedings.

ACC lawyer Khorshed Alam Khan said the stay order, which was issued after hearing the petition on the case's inclusion under the Emergency Rule Act, was later scrapped by the Appellate Division.

"But there was a rule on this matter. We have filed a plea for the hearing on that rule. Following a petition by Khaleda Zia’s lawyers, the High Court said it had been included on the cause list of Feb 4," he said.

Meanwhile, the stay order issued in 2008 was still in force, which was brought to the court's attention on Tuesday, added the lawyer.

"That might be included on Thursday's cause list."