September 19, 2007	Wednesday	Ramazan 06, 1428

DHAKA, Sept 18: A court in Bangladesh on Tuesday cleared the country’s former military dictator Hussain Muhammad Ershad of gold smuggling allegations, police said.

The gold smuggling case was filed against him 16 years ago, but Dhaka police deputy commissioner Shahidul Haque Bhuiyan said “the prosecution failed to prove the charges.” The court’s verdict is the latest in a string of acquittals for Ershad.

Earlier this year, a judge ruled that the chairman of the Jatiya Party, the country’s third-largest party, should not serve a two-year sentence for a graft conviction.

That ruling meant that Ershad, who ruled the country until 1990 after grabbing power in a bloodless coup in 1982, could contest future elections.

A series of other graft cases against Ershad were abandoned last year after he pledged to back the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) in the polls, which had been scheduled for Jan 22.

Ershad, however, later withdrew his support for the BNP and said his party would join an alliance of parties led by the main opposition Awami League.

—AFP