Bangladesh on Sunday issued an arrest warrant for opposition leader Sheikh Hasina Wajed as a plane arrived to take her arch rival, the country's last prime minister, into exile in Saudi Arabia.
Updated at 2:14 pm
DHAKA: Bangladesh on Sunday issued an arrest warrant for opposition leader Sheikh Hasina Wajed as a plane arrived to take her arch rival, the country's last prime minister, into exile in Saudi Arabia.
The country's military-backed government is trying to exile both leaders for years of alleged rampant corruption and misrule.
At least 200 journalists were camped at Dhaka's main international airport from late on Saturday as rumours of Khaleda Zia's imminent exit from Bangladeshi politics swept the city.
As she prepared to leave, a Bangladesh court on Sunday issued a warrant for the arrest of Sheikh Hasina, also a former prime minister, on murder charges.
The leader of the opposition Awami League, who is currently in London, had earlier said again she would attempt to board a plane for Dhaka later in the day, defying the government's efforts to prevent her return.
Sheikh Hasina is accused of responsibility for killings at Paltan, an area of the capital in which Awami League activists beat at least four people to death last October.
Charges were filed against Sheikh Hasina earlier this month while she was visiting relatives in the United States.
Although she vowed to fight the charges in person, the interim government of the emergency-ruled country barred her from returning and informed airlines operating flights to Bangladesh.
However, aides said Sheikh Hasina was determined to attempt to return.
"She will go to Heathrow and will fly to Dhaka. She will face the situation at Heathrow if British Airways does not allow her a boarding pass to Dhaka," Sheikh Hasina's private secretary Abdus Sobhan Golap said from London.
"She is ready to face anything at home," he added.
The government wants to exile both Sheikh Hasina and Zia, the leader of the country's other main political party, as part of a campaign to clean up Bangladesh's notoriously corrupt political system.
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