DHAKA, Sept 24: Bangladesh’s emergency government will unveil a new list of politicians suspected of corruption as part of its anti-graft crackdown, bringing the total to around 200, a minister said on Monday.“A new list will be prepared. There are already three lists that contain the names of 142 people, against whom cases are now in progress,” interim commerce minister and head of the government’s corruption taskforce M.A. Matin said.

“The new list will take the total number of corruption suspects to about 200. And we want to finish the cases against them by 2008,” he added.

The three lists so far contain the names of politicians from the two main parties including two former prime ministers — Khaleda Zia of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and Sheikh Hasina Wajed of the Awami League. Nearly all of the politicians have been arrested, including the ex-prime ministers.

A dozen former ministers, their family members and former lawmakers have already been sentenced to between three and 22 years in jail.—AFP