The High Court and three lower courts yesterday cleared BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia and acting chairman Tarique Rahman in four cases of graft and extortion.

The HC acquitted Khaleda in the Zia Charitable Trust corruption case.

The bench of Justice AKM Asaduzzaman and Justice Syed Enayet Hossain scrapped the trial court's verdict that sentenced the BNP chief and two others to seven years.

It delivered the judgement after hearing appeals filed by the three challenging the trial court verdict.

Khaleda and two others were cleared of the charges in the Barapukuria coal mine graft case by a Dhaka court yesterday.

The two others are former ministers Air Vice Marshal (retd) Altaf Hossain Chowdhury and Khandaker Mosharraf Hossain.

Judge Md Abu Taher of Dhaka Special Judge's Court-3, however, framed charges against Moazzem Hossain, Nazrul Islam, Moinul Ahsan and Md Sirajul Islam Chowdhury, officially launching the trial.

In another development, Judge Md Rezaul Karim of the Dhaka Special Judge's Court-10 cleared Tarique in a case filed in 2008 over dodging Tk 26.86 lakh in income tax from 2002 to 2006.

Tarique was also cleared by the Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate's Court of Dhaka in another case filed during the rule of the army-backed caretaker government in 2007 over demanding Tk 10.31 crore as extortion from Abdul Monem Ltd.

A Dhaka court convicted Khaleda and three others in the Zia Charitable Trust corruption case on October 29, 2018.

The three others were the former prime minister's then political secretary Harris Chowdhury (now dead), the latter's then private secretary Ziaul Islam Munna, and Monirul Islam Khan, private secretary to a former Dhaka City Corporation mayor.

The Anti-Corruption Commission had filed the case with Tejgaon Police Station on August 8, 2011, accusing the four of abusing power to raise funds for the trust from unknown sources.

Khaleda, who mostly stayed at her Gulshan home for the last five years following the suspension of her prison sentence, was released on August 6 this year after President Mohammed Shahabuddin had granted her clemency in two cases based on the law ministry's recommendation.

The development came a day after Hasina resigned as prime minister and fled the country in the face of a mass uprising.

Khaleda landed in jail on February 8, 2018, after a special court in Dhaka sentenced her to five years' imprisonment in the Zia Orphanage Trust corruption case. The High Court later doubled her jail term.

In the same year, the same special court sentenced the BNP chief to seven years in jail in the Zia Charitable Trust graft case.