Bangladesh ex-PM to be freed: government

Bangladesh's emergency government announced Monday it was releasing former premier Sheikh Hasina Wajed, currently detained on corruption charges, so she can travel abroad for medical treatment. The move comes as the army-backed authorities try to ease tensions with the main political parties and organise a return to democracy with new elections by the end of the year.

Sheikh Hasina, who led the country from 1996 to 2001 and heads the Awami League party, is expected to travel to the United States for medical treatment for ear problems, government prosecutor Sharfuddin Khan Mukul said.

"The government has decided to give her an opportunity to go abroad for treatment. She will be released through an administrative order," Mukul said.

He said she could be let out as early as Monday evening.

"A court has returned her passport while four other courts have exempted her from appearing in the hearings of her corruption cases," he said, but added she would still be tried in absentia.

Her lawyer, Kamrul Islam, told AFP she could be freed "within hours and could fly out of Dhaka as early as Tuesday morning."

Sheikh Hasina's doctor, Syed Mudassir Ali, told AFP she had serious eye and ear problems that required treatment in the United States.

Thousands of supporters of Sheikh Hasina's party have been gathering since late Sunday along roads leading to the national parliament complex, where she has been detained, in anticipation of her release.

Newspapers reported Sunday that the emergency government would free Sheikh Hasina and her bitter rival and two-time former prime minister, Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) leader Khaleda Zia, to allow them both to go abroad.

But Zia has said she does not want to leave the country and that she wants to be treated for her acute arthritis and knee problems in Bangladesh, her lawyer, Nasiruddin Wasim, told AFP on Sunday.

The BNP and the Awami League leaders have been 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 had tried to force the two women into exile last year as part of an effort to clean up the country's notoriously dysfunctional political system, but they refused to leave and were put on trial instead.

But at the same time, the government is trying to hold talks with the BNP and the Awami League on restoring democracy by year's end.

Both parties say they are boycotting the talks unless their leaders are freed. It is unclear, however, if the government is freeing them on the condition they do not come back.