Shawdesh desk:

A Dhaka court set August 8 for holding hearing on charge framing in the Barapukuria Coalmine graft case against BNP Chairperson Begum Khaleda Zia and nine others.

Today was fixed for holding the indictment hearing, but Begum Khaleda Zia failed to appear before the court because of her “illness”.

Accepting a time plea filed by the defence, Acting Judge Nazrul Islam of Dhaka Special Judge Court-2 deferred the hearing till August 8.

The Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) on February 26, 2008, filed the graft case against Khaleda Zia and 15 others with Shahbagh Police Station.

Deputy Director of the ACC Md Abul Kashem Fokir filed a charge-sheet in the case on October 5, 2008.

They were accused of causing a loss of around Taka 159 crore to the state exchequer by awarding a contract for operation of Barapukuria Coalmine to a Chinese company through abuse of power.

Of the initial 16 accused, convicted war criminals Nizami and Mojaheed have been hanged and four others have died of natural causes and their names are expected to be dropped from the case during framing of the charges.

Now the 10 accused are– Begum Khaleda Zia, Altaf Hossain Chowdhury, Dr Khandker Mosharraf Hossain, MK Anwar, M Shamsul Islam, Md Sirajul Islam Chowdhury, Moajjem Hossain, Nazrul Islam, Moinul Ahsan and AKM Mosharraf Hossain.