BANGLADESH: Bangladesh police detain former prime minister Sheikh Hasina

Police took former Bangladesh prime minister Sheikh Hasina from her home on Monday (July 16) and a court ordered her to jail for an unspecified period, court officials said, the latest in a series of setbacks for the one-time leader. Police said she was arrested in connection with an extortion charge she was previously accused of, and other corruption charges related to her term in office from 1996 to 2001. It was not immediately clear on what charges Hasina was detained, but she was previously accused of extortion and corruption during her term in office from 1996 to 2001. She has denied the accusations and said they are politically motivated. "We have not heard the verdict, but I know that the court rejected the bail petition," one lawyer shouted outside the Dhaka courthouse. Hasina, chief of the Awami League, and her rival Begum Khaleda Zia alternated as prime minister of the south Asian country for 15 years from 1991. They had jointly led a people's revolt that toppled the country's last military ruler Hossain Mohammad Ershad, but have remained foes ever since. Hasina led the Awami League to power in June 1996, 21 years after her father, independence leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, was killed in a military coup in August 1975. Under Hasina's leadership the League abandoned the socialist policies it espoused under her father in the 1970s. Now it strongly advocates economic liberalisation and has moved away from its secular roots to court the Islamic vote. Two things Hasina failed to tackle were a resurgence of Islamic fundamentalism and deteriorating law and order. At least 100 people were killed and many more wounded in a series of bomb blasts in the last two years of her rule, which the government and police blamed on Islamist militants trying to destroy democracy. Hasina was also the target of assassination attempts herself. Hasina did, however, complete the trial of the killers of her father who was killed in a 1975 army coup. Hasina suffered a shock defeat in the 2001 elections, with Begum Khaleda Zia's Bangladesh Nationalist Party-led alliance winning more than two-thirds majority in the 300-seat national assembly. She escaped death in August 2004, when grenades were thrown at a rally and 23 people died. Hasina suffered partial loss of hearing due to the blasts. The political violence, Hasina's boycott of planned elections in January, and her demands for political reforms were factors in a military-backed interim authority taking power. But the authority imposed a state of emergency, clamped down on political activity, restricted travel by her and Khaleda, and has not committed to elections earlier than year-end 2008. The interim government's anti-corruption has netted a number of her allies and party officials. Born on September 28, 1947, in Tungipara village in southwestern Bangladesh, then East Pakistan, Hasina graduated from Dhaka University in 1973. Hasina and her sister Sheikh Rehana were living abroad when their father and most family members were killed. On returning home in 1981, Hasina became leader of the Awami League and reshaped it into a major political force. Trim and bespectacled, she gained her early political experience as a go-between for her father and student followers. A devout Muslim, Hasina is married to nuclear physicist Wazed Ali Miah. They have a son and a daughter.

ITN Source | July 16, 2007

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