Bangladesh's army-backed emergency government is preparing to free the country's top two political party leaders-former premiers who are being held on corruption charges, reports said Sunday. Bangladeshi newspapers said Khaleda Zia and Sheikh Hasina Wajed, who are being held as part of the government's crackdown on graft, would both be allowed out of jail to go abroad for medical treatment.
"The government has completed preliminary preparations to release the two former prime ministers," the Prothom Alo newspaper said. Reports said the women were visited by doctors several days ago, and were found to be suffering from conditions that require treatment overseas.
Prothom Alo said Zia's youngest son and political heir Arafat Rahman, who is also being held on graft charges, could also be released and sent abroad for treatment of severe asthma. According to the Daily Star newspaper, Zia and Hasina will soon be bailed. It said the emergency government "is now working to find out a way to release them in a manner acceptable to all."
Zia's Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and Hasina's Awami League were blamed for the political paralysis and unrest that led to the imposition of a state of emergency and formation of an army-backed authority in January 2007.
The interim government has since detained the two women, as well as tried to force them into exile as part of an effort to clean up the country's notoriously dysfunctional political system.
At the same time, the government is trying to hold talks with the BNP and the Awami League on restoring democracy by the end of the year. Both parties say they are boycotting the talks unless their leaders are freed. But according to Zia's lawyer, Nasiruddin Wasim, the political leader "would in no way go abroad for treatment." Hasina's lawyer Kamrul Islam, however, said the Awami League leader was "willing to go to the United States" for treatment for an ear problem.