A court in the Bangladesh capital on Thursday cleared the country's former military dictator Hussain Muhammad Ershad on corruption charges.
The verdict was handed down by a special tribunal amid media reports that it would pave the way for an alliance between Ershad and Prime Minister Khaleda Zia's four-party coalition government ahead of national polls in January.
The case, lodged by the now defunct Anti-Corruption Bureau in 1992, alleged that Ershad while president illegally withdrew around 4,000 dollars he had deposited with authorities as income tax.
"Ershad has been acquitted in the case of illegal withdrawal of income tax money," public prosecutor Bazlur Rahman Khan told AFP, adding however that two further corruption cases were still pending.
He gave no details about the cases. Ershad was Bangladesh's military ruler between 1982 and 1990.
His Jatiya Party, the second largest opposition party, has not been an ally of Zia's Islamist-allied coalition government but has supported it in on many issues.
In recent months the party with its stronghold in northern Bangladesh has been courted by both the ruling coalition and the main opposition Awami League party to form a coalition.
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