The former ruling Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) accused Bangladesh's anti-graft body of filing fictitious cases Thursday against outgoing premier Khaleda Zia who is facing multiple extortion charges in criminal courts across the country, according to dpa. "The charges which have been framed against the BNP chief are false, fabricated and are designed to taint her political image, banning her from future general elections," said party spokesperson Rizvi Ahmad. Ahmad's statement came in the wake of disclosures late Tuesday by the Anti-Corruption Commission that it had sued Zia and ten of her cabinet ministers for misappropriating state funds while awarding a contract on running a coal mine in northern Bangladesh. Among the high profile ex-ministers who were named in the case are former finance minister Saifur Rahman, former agriculture minister M K Anwar from the BNP and former industry minister Matiur Rahman Nizami from Jamaat-I-Islami, the BNP's coalition partner. The anti-corruption watchdog also accused five senior bureaucrats of involvement in the 20-million-dollar scam detected by the military-backed interim government. Anti-corruption inspectors said Zia and her ministers were guilty of handing the contract for the production, management and maintenance of the state-owned Barapukuria coal mine to a Chinese mining company, thereby causing substantial losses to the country. Zia has been interned in a house near Dhaka's parliament building since last December after she was accused of accepting bribes for arranging a gas exploratory deal for a Canadian company.
