The law ministry on Sunday rejected indirectly an application seeking permission to send former prime minister and main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party chairperson Khaleda Zia abroad for better treatment, citing legal barriers.

The law minister, Anisul Huq, made the announcement at his secretariat office, saying that there was no scope to reconsider the fresh application submitted by Khaleda’s brother seeking to take her abroad for treatment.

Khaleda has been hospitalised for 53 days, and her physicians have recommended she take treatment abroad, fearing a further deterioration of her health condition.

Khaleda Zia’s brother Shamim Iskander submitted an application to the government to allow the family to send the ailing former prime minister abroad for advanced treatment, home minister Asaduzzaman Khan disclosed in the past week. The government’s decision came after prime minister Sheikh Hasina, in an interview with Voice of America Bangla aired on Saturday, said that the BNP chairperson’s jail term suspension would have to be revoked first and she was required to go to jail again if she wanted to go abroad for treatment.

The law minister argued on Sunday that when an application was disposed of under Section 401 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, there was no scope to reconsider it anymore.

Section 401 of the CrPC empowers the government to suspend or remit sentences.

He echoed the prime minister and said that the decision could be taken only by cancelling the order in reference to Section 401, which suspended the conviction of Khaleda Zia and got her freed conditionally.

In a press release, the law ministry said that they had already sent their opinion to the home ministry, referring to Section 401, which read that since the application was a ‘past and closed transaction’ there was no scope to reopen it. When asked about the possibility of reconsidering the decision to send Khaleda abroad for improved medical care, the prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, in the VOA Bangla interview said, ‘My question is, which country in the world can send a convicted criminal abroad for better treatment? Will any country allow it?’

‘If they want to apply, they have to go to the court and get court permission. We have no authority over the work of the judiciary,’ she stated. ‘But yes, we have suspended her jail term and given her permission to stay at home. And she is taking treatment now in the most expensive hospital in Bangladesh. If they need to go abroad, permission to stay at home would first need to be revoked; she would then need to return to prison and court. Only after obtaining court permission could she travel abroad,’ she said.

Asked, the law minister said that there was a tradition in the South Asian subcontinent not to challenge the government order under Section 401 to the court.

In a press conference, BNP senior joint secretary Ruhul Kabir Razvi, meanwhile, said on Sunday that the decision of not to allow the BNP chief to travel abroad for better treatment was the implementation of the prime minister’s remarks in the United States.

While talking to reporters after holding a meeting with the Awami League presidium members in Dhaka, the party’s general secretary, Obaidul Quader, said that the country’s constitution, laws, and government executive power did not allow her to go aboard as she was convicted in several cases.

He said that if she wanted to go aboard, she had to get an order from the court.

‘Our prime minister has set an example of humanity by reducing her jail term and giving her the chance to receive treatment at home or at the country’s posh health facility, even though she was the PM’s main political opponent,’ he said.

The security services division under the home ministry on September 18 extended the suspension of the BNP chairperson’s jail term by another six months, with effect from September 25.

During the period, Khaleda Zia would not be allowed to go abroad, according to the conditions.

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

Since then, her release term has been extended every six months following the family’s plea.

Khaleda was sent to the Old Dhaka Central Jail as a lower court sentenced her to five years imprisonment in the Zia Orphanage Trust corruption case on February 8, 2018.

Later, she was found guilty and convicted in another corruption case the same year.

Her party says that Khaleda, a 78-year-old opposition leader, has long been suffering from various ailments, including liver cirrhosis, arthritis, diabetes, kidney, lung, heart, eye problems, and post-Covid complications.