The ad interim government revoked a ban on the return home of the leader of Awami League, who arrived in Dhaka yesterday. Accused of murder and corruption, Hasina has warned the authorities: “Not allowing me to return home was a mistake and the same mistake will be repeated if they arrest me.”

Dhaka (AsiaNews/Agencies) – The ex-prime minister of Bangladesh, Sheikh Hasina, arrived in Dhaka yesterday after the government revoked a ban on her return. Hasina, leader of the Awami League (AL) and head of the government between 1996 and 2001, was meant to return a month ago from a trip to the USA but she was stopped in London, where British Airways refused to issue her with a boarding card.

However, pressure from public opinion and from the international community forced the authorities to capitulate. They annulled measures against Hasina and her rival, the outgoing prime minister Khaleda Zia, aimed at imposing exile on the two protagonists of national politics.

Khaleda Zia, leader of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, was accused of corruption and placed under house arrest in her residence in Dhaka. To obtain the release of her younger son, arrested a few days earlier, she was forced to promise that she would go into voluntary exile in Saudi Arabia. Zia is now called upon to respond to corruption charges, as is Shiekh Hasina. Over her head hangs a charge of the murder of four political opponents, killed during a rally in October 2006 in the capital. On arrival at the airport, Hasina said: “The government made a mistake by not allowing me to return home and it will repeat the same mistake if they arrest me.” Meanwhile her supporters chanted threatening slogans on the streets: “There will be fires in every home if Hasina is arrested.”

• bangladesh
• hasina
• government
• provisional
• elections
• corruption