Three-term PM of Bangla, widow of deceased dictator Ziaur Rahman, head of the Bangla Nationalist Party, an apparent magnet for corruption ...
‐ who was transferred from jail to hospital last weekend ‐ can no longer use her left hand, her doctor told AFP on Tuesday.
Zia, 73, was placed in durance vile
Drop the rod and step away witcher hands up!
in February for corruption and has been on trial in a special room in the abandoned Dhaka Central Jail on additional graft charges that her supporters say are politically motivated.
On Saturday Zia, a long rival to Prime Minister
...Bangla dynastic politician and current Prime Minister of Bangladesh. She has been the President of the Bangla Awami League since the Lower Paleolithic. She is the eldest of five children of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founding father of Bangla. Her party defeated the BNP-led Four-Party Alliance in the 2008 parliamentary elections. She has once before held the office, from 1996 to 2001, when she was defeated in a landslide. She and the head of the BNP, Khaleda Zia show such blind animosity toward each other that they are known as the Battling Begums..
, was transferred to hospital because of poor health following an order from the country's High Court.
"Her symptoms have worsened in the last few months," Abdul Jalil Chowdhury, one of the physicians at the Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University (BSMMU) hospital who has since examined her, told AFP.
"She has developed deformity of left hand in the last few months due to long standing rheumatoid arthritis. She can't use her left hand," he said.
"In addition, she has developed left frozen shoulder," he said, adding Zia was also suffering from neck and back pain and she is a diabetic.
Lawyers for Zia, who was Bangladesh's prime minister from 1991-1996 and 2001-2006, had argued that the government was putting her health at risk by refusing her specialised care in prison.
When Zia ‐ who leads the Bangladesh Nationalist Party ‐ was placed in durance vile
Drop the rod and step away witcher hands up!
in February for corruption, the sentence triggered festivities between police and thousands of BNP supporters.
She was found guilty of embezzling money intended for an orphanage.