B'desh ex-PM prepared for jail on return home

London, May 5: Former Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is prepared for jail if she is arrested on her return home, she said today.

''I don't bother, I don't care. They can arrest me, they can kill me, but I have to go, I have to go to my people,'' she told Reuters at a reception days before her planned return to Bangladesh, where she faces charges of murder and extortion.

Hasina has been in Britain since April 19 when she stopped off after a holiday in the United States and was barred from flying to Dhaka by Bangladesh's army-backed interim government.

The ban was lifted six days later under intense local and international pressure, and Hasina is expected to arrive back in Bangladesh on Monday.

A government adviser has said Hasina would face legal action once she returned, but would not say if she might be arrested.

The former prime minister said she was concerned the government was rounding up her followers. ''They are starting to arrest people who work for us,'' she said.

Bangladesh has been under a state of emergency since January 11, and parliamentary elections planned for January 22 were cancelled in the wake of widespread political violence. All political activities are also banned.

Hasina has been charged with abetting deaths cause by street battles between militant supporters of her Awami League and its opponents, including the Bangladesh Nationalist Party of Hasina's bitter rival, Begum Khaleda Zia.

The two women have alternated in power as prime minister since 1991. Khaleda's most recent term ended last October.

Hasina also faces charges of extorting some 430,000 dollars from a businessman when she was in power in 1998. She has denied the charges against her and says they were fabricated to keep her out of the political process.

Reuters
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