DHAKA (AFP) — Authorities in emergency-ruled Bangladesh on Tuesday filed a second corruption case against the country's last elected prime minister Khaleda Zia as well as 12 former ministers, an official said.
The case claims that irregularities over the awarding of a contract to run a coal mine in northern Bangladesh in 2004 led to state losses of 23 million dollars, assistant director of the Anti-Corruption Commission Shamsul Alam told AFP.
Zia's Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) led a coalition government until October 2006.
The two-time former premier, arrested last September as part of the current military-backed government's corruption crackdown, remains under investigation over another case.
That investigation is looking into allegations that Zia, her son Arafat Rahman and 11 others illegally influenced the awarding of container handling contracts to a private company. A case was filed late last year, a commission official added.
Bangladesh has been under emergency rule since January 11, 2007, when elections were cancelled after months of violence over claims of vote-rigging made by Zia's rival Sheikh Hasina Wajed. The military-run government took power on January 12.
Sheikh Hasina, who leads the Awami League party, is also in custody on corruption and other charges.
Under the interim government's anti-corruption drive, more than a dozen former ministers and their relatives have received sentences of between three and 20 years.
It has pledged to clean up the country's politics before reinstating democracy through fresh elections in late 2008.
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