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FACTBOX-Five facts on detained Bangladesh politician Hasina

16 Jul 2007 07:31:18 GMT
Source: Reuters

July 16 (Reuters) - Bangladeshi police took former prime minister Sheikh Hasina from her Dhaka home on Monday to a court that sent her to jail for detention over charges of extortion, court officials said.

Here are five facts on Hasina's life and career.

* Born on September 28, 1947, in the remote Tungipara village in southwestern Bangladesh, then East Pakistan, Hasina was the elder daughter of Sheikh Mujib Rahman, widely revered as the father of modern Bangladesh. He was the country's first president and later prime minister.

* A devout Muslim who has been on the haj pilgrimage several times, Hasina became politically active as a student, serving as a go-between for her father and his student followers in pro-independence agitations against the rule of former West Pakistan. Hasina has authored several books on Bangaldeshi politics.

* Hasina was briefly put under house arrest at Mujib's Dhanmandi residence by the Pakistani army during the nine-month guerilla war that ended with Bangladesh's independence in December 1971, along with family members and her husband, the nuclear physicist Wazed Ali Miah.

* Having graduated from Dhaka University in 1973, Hasina and her only sister were overseas in West Germany when her father, mother and three brothers were assassinated by disgruntled army officers in an August 1975 coup. Elected leader of her father's party, the Awami League, while in India during almost six years in exile, she was allowed to return to Bangladesh in 1981.

* Detained several times while in opposition in the nineties, Hasina took power as prime minister from 1996 to 2001 before being displaced by Khaleda Zia's Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP). She says extortion and corruption charges filed against her are designed to prevent her contesting an upcoming national election around late 2008. Her political woes deepened when murder charges were filed against her and 50 others in April 2007 over the deaths of 10 activists during street protests on Oct. 28 last year.

Source: Reuters

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Last updated:Mon Jul 16 07:32:58 2007