Khaleda Zia to return home from hospital this evening

BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia is scheduled to return home on Wednesday evening after receiving treatment in a city hospital for nearly a month and a half.

“She (Khaleda) will be discharged from the hospital in the evening as per the advice of the medical board, said her media wing member Shamsuddin Didar quoting her personal physician Dr AZM Zahid Hossain.

He said a process is underway to send ailing Khaleda Zia abroad for advanced medical treatment.

On July 8, Khaleda Zia, a former prime minister, was admitted to Evercare Hospital in the capital six days after she had been discharged from the same hospital with various ailments.

A group of specialist doctors, led by Prof Shahabuddin Talukder, successfully installed a pacemaker in Khaleda Zia’s chest on June 23.

Khaleda has long been battling various ailments, including liver cirrhosis, arthritis, diabetes, and issues related to the kidney, lung, heart, and eyes.

Khaleda's doctors have been recommending sending her abroad since she was diagnosed with liver cirrhosis in November 2021.

On October 26 last year, three US specialist doctors completed the hepatic procedure known as the transjugular intrahepatic portosystemic shunt (TIPS procedure) to stop water accretion in Khaleda Zia's stomach and chest, and bleeding in her liver.

She was placed in Old Dhaka Central Jail on February 8, 2018, after a special court sentenced her to five years in prison in the Zia Orphanage Trust corruption case. On October 30, 2018, the High Court raised her punishment to 10 years. Later, she was convicted in the Zia Charitable Trust corruption case.

Amid the coronavirus outbreak, the government temporarily freed Khaleda Zia from jail after 776 days through an executive order, suspending her sentence on March 25, 2020 with conditions that she would stay in her Gulshan house and not leave the country.

On August 6 last, Khaleda Zia was completely freed by an order of President Mohammed Shahabuddin.

The president passed the order under Article 49 of the Bangladesh Constitution, according to a gazette issued by the home ministry on August 6.

Article 49 states that "The president shall have power to grant pardons, reprieves, and respites and to remit, suspend, or commute any sentence passed by any court, tribunal, or other authority."