Exiled Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Monday launched a blistering attack on Nobel laureate Dr Muhammad Yunus and the Anti-Corruption Commission, calling todayโs five-year jail sentence handed to her in the latest Purbachal plot case โnothing but Yunusโs personal revengeโ and declaring the ACC a fully politicised tool being used as a smokescreen to hide the unelected regimeโs own corruption and failures.
In a statement issued hours after the verdict, Sheikh Hasina said the ACC has become โa political mechanism controlled by an unelected government run by the Awami Leagueโs opponentsโ and is being deliberately deployed to target only her party while turning a blind eye to massive cronyism under Yunus.
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โYunus is using the ACC as a smokescreen to distract attention from his own governance collapse and from the ragtag coalition of extremists and opportunists who now hold power,โ she charged, warning that the continuing judicial farce is โbadly damaging Bangladeshโs international standing with key trading partners.โ
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Mondayโs ruling came from Dhaka Special Judge Court-4, where Judge Robiul Alam sentenced Sheikh Hasina to five yearsโ rigorous imprisonment, her sister Sheikh Rehana to seven years, and British Labour MP Tulip SiddiqโRehanaโs daughter-to two years over alleged irregularities in the allocation of a single 10-katha plot in the RAJUK Purbachal New Town Project.
Fourteen others, including former RAJUK officials, were also convicted. The trial, which began only months ago, was conducted entirely in absentia and concluded within minutes of the court opening on Monday morning.
The verdict marks the fourth Purbachal conviction in five days. On November 27, three separate special courts had already sentenced Sheikh Hasina to a total of 21 years (seven years in each case), her son Sajeeb Wazed Joy to 21 years, and her daughter Saima Wazed to three years over similar plot-allotment charges.
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Reacting to those earlier sentences last week, Sheikh Hasina had exposed what she called glaring hypocrisy: Yunus himself owns 4,080 katha in the same Purbachal project and has built a luxury resort there, while her familyโs purchase of just 10 katha each at official government rates has been branded a โgrave crime.โ
Sajeeb Wazed Joy, speaking immediately after the November 27 verdicts, threw down an open challenge that remains unanswered: โEvery stepโapplication, allotment, paymentโfollowed the letter of the law. Prove that any family member named owns any other property in Dhaka.โ
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He warned that if such โfalse and fabricated casesโ are used to bar the Awami League from next yearโs election, the party will take to the streets and foil any vote that excludes pro-liberation forces.
With todayโs additional sentences, Sheikh Hasina now faces a cumulative 26 years behind bars across the four cases, while her family members have been handed more than 54 years in totalโall decided in trials widely condemned as lacking due process.
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