Arrest warrant against Bangladesh Opposition leader Khaleda Zia's son

An arrest warrant has been issued against Bangladesh's ex-prime minister and Opposition leader Khaleda Zia's fugitive eldest son Tarique Rahman for calling Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman a "friend of Pakistan."

The warrant against Rahman, 50, was issued yesterday by Dhaka's Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate.

An arrest warrant is out for Rahman, also a senior vice chairman of Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), in a case filed over his comments calling Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman a "Pakbandhu" (friend of Pakistan), Bdnews 24 reported.

Bangabandhu Foundation President Moshiur Malek, who filed the case, said in his plea that Tarique described his father Zia-ur Rahman as the first president of Bangladesh at a programme in London on September 29.

Malek maintained the claim was "false and intentional."

Such remarks amounted to a distortion of the history of Bangladesh's liberation war against Pakistan, he said.

After the case was filed, the judge ordered the Detective Branch to engage an officer not below the rank of an assistant commissioner on permission from the government to investigate the charge.

Rahman was arrested during the military-backed caretaker government in 2007 on charges of corruption.

He had been implicated in a dozen of corruption cases then. After being released on parole, he went to the UK for treatment in September 2008 and has not returned since.

BNP chief Zia blames political vendetta by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's government for her son's prosecution.