The government cannot release someone on parole on its own unless the prisoner seeks, says Law Minister Anisul Huq.
His remarks came on Monday (Apr 8) while responding queries from the media as talks of over BNP chief Khaleda Zia’s parole doing the rounds, reports BSS.
“The government cannot forcibly release someone on parole. They have to plead for it,” he was quoted saying by the state news agency.
On Sunday, Awami League acting general secretary Mahbubul Alam Hanif said that the former prime minister’s condition does not warrant for a parole.
“The release of Khaleda Zia on parole is not a political issue; it relates to a legal issue,” he told the media.
Referring to the legal procedure for parole, Hanif, one of the spokesmen of the Awami League, said generally the release on parole is eligible for any prisoner when he/she wants to see ailing relatives or attend a relative’s funeral ceremony.
“But such a situation has not come up till now,” he added.
Talks over Khaleda’s parole started doing the rounds after Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan said on Saturday that the government would consider releasing Khaleda on parole if she seeks citing specific reasons.
Parole is the conditional release of an inmate before completion of a sentence.
The BNP, however, demanded unconditional release of its chief Khaleda from jail.
“We want the leader of the country to be freed unconditionally. We haven’t said anything about parole,” Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir said during a protest in Dhaka on Sunday.
“We are making it clear that she deserves the right to get bail. All the others named in the case, over which she has been forcefully jailed, are out on bail,” he added.
Khaleda has been in prison since February, 2018. She is sentenced to serve 17 years in jail in two graft cases. BNP leaders allege the ruling Awami League has imprisoned her as an act of ‘political vengeance’.
She is currently receiving treatment at the Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University (BSMMU) Hospital. She was move from the old jailhouse in Old Dhaka on Apr 1.
The 73-year-old politician is suffering from a combination of arthritis, high levels of diabetes and other age-related health complications.