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Dhaka: The trial of detained former Bangladesh prime minister Shaikh Hasina in a graft case began on Tuesday at a special court here with an Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) official testifying as the first witness.
Judge Mohammad Feroz Alam, presiding over the hearing at the makeshift court in the parliament complex, ordered witnesses to testify as Hasina was brought in from a nearby temporary sub-jail in the same compound to face the trial under tough Emergency Power Rules (EPR).
ACC deputy director and the plaintiff in the case, Sabbir Hassan deposed before the court. Hasina has been accused along with seven others of awarding the task of installing three barge-mounted power plants through "irregular means".
Lawyers for Hasina, who heads the Awami League party, said she could be jailed for 3-12 years and barred from contesting any election if found guilty.
The ACC chargesheet alleged that Hasina had accepted a house in Dhanmondi and a plot of land registered in the name of the Bangabandhu Memorial Trust from the Summit and United Groups besides 3 crore taka (Dh1,647,438) in exchange for the contracts.
Hasina had told the court on Sunday that the charges against her were "politically motivated". "If you were an independent professional dispensing justice, I'd have been acquitted of the charges today," she said.
Extortion case
The ex-premier is facing five other graft cases and has been indicted in two of them as the interim government spearheads a massive anti-graft campaign.
The hearing of another "extortion case" filed by businessman Ajam J. Chowdhury is under way in a different court after Hasina's lawyers exhausted legal options in higher courts to challenge her trial under the EPR, which demands quick disposal of cases while the accused are held in detention.
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