Bangladesh president orders release of ex-PM Khaleda Zia

The order for Zia’s release comes hours after her archrival Sheikh Hasina resigned as prime minister and fled Bangladesh.

Bangladesh’s President Mohammed Shahabuddin has ordered the release of jailed former prime minister and key opposition leader Khaleda Zia, hours after her archrival Sheikh Hasina was ousted and fled the country.

The president’s press team said in a statement on Monday that a meeting led by Shahabuddin had “decided unanimously to free Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) chairperson Begum Khaleda Zia immediately”.

Army chief General Waker-Uz-Zaman, along with the head of the navy and air force, and top leaders of several opposition parties, including the BNP and the Jamaat-e-Islami party, attended the president’s meeting.

Zia, 78 and twice the prime minister of Bangladesh, is in poor health and confined to hospital after she was sentenced to 17 years in prison for corruption in 2018.

She shares a long-standing rivalry with Hasina, and was accused of misusing her power by embezzling some $250,000 in donations meant for an orphanage trust.

The BNP has said the cases were fabricated and aimed at keeping Zia away from politics, allegations denied by Hasina’s government.

“The meeting has also decided to free all the people who have been arrested during the student protests,” the president’s statement added.

More than 2,000 people had been arrested since last month during deadly street protests over a government job quota that soon transformed into a nationwide call for Hasina to quit office.

Nearly 300 people were killed in weeks of protests that the authorities sought to crush. A night of deadly violence on Sunday killed close to 100 and a curfew to quash protests was called.

Earlier on Monday, General