LawFuel – Law Newswire – The Times of India reports that the former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, facing charges of corruption and murder, arrived in Bangladesh on Monday after the military-backed government lifted a ban on her return.
“It’s my country, it’s my home. I’m so excited to be able to return to my country,’’ Hasina said at Dhaka’s Zia International Airport after arriving from London.
On April 25, the government lifted a ban on Hasina’s return, just seven days after it had blacklisted her amid reports that it wanted to keep her in exile. Asked if she feared arrest, Hasina said the authorities “made a mistake in imposing the ban on my return. I don’t think they are going to repeat that mistake.’’
Senior aides of Hasina greeted her at the airport with flowers. Several supporters gathered outside the tightly guarded airport to cheer her. She was scheduled to drive from the airport to her residence in downtown Dhaka.
Authorities had accused Hasina of making “inflammatory statements’’ about the country’s interim government while abroad, and warned that her return might create further confusion and incite divisions among the public. Hasina, who was PM in 1996-2001, was charged with abetting murder on April 11 while she was in the US on a personal visit.
The murder charge involves the deaths of four protesters during a riot in October at one of a series of demonstrations by her Awami League party that accused then-PM Khaleda Zia’s government of stacking the committee that was supposed to oversee January elections and of rigging electoral rolls.
