Begum Khaleda Zia, the head of the BNP, was met by British High Commissioner to Bangladesh Sarah Cooke on Wednesday evening, and she was asked about her health.

Sayrul Kabir Khan, a member of the BNP Media Cell, reported that the meeting took place at 8:30 p.m. in the BNP Chairperson’s Firoza mansion in the Gulshan neighborhood of the city.

It was Khaleda Zia’s first encounter with an international envoy since her acquittal on charges of graft in 2018.

According to party sources, Sarah Cooke had a meeting with Khaleda before to her trip to the UK for improved care.

Prof. Dr. AZM Zahid Hossain, a member of the BNP standing committee, Prof. Shahabuddin Talukder, the head of her medical board, Dr. FM Siddique, and Tabith Awal, the special assistant to the BNP chairperson’s foreign affairs advisory council, were in attendance.

On August 6, Khaleda Zia was completely freed by an order of President Mohammed Shahabuddin.

According to a gazette issued by the home ministry on August 6, the president passed the order under Article 49 of the Bangladesh Constitution.

Article 49 says: the president shall have power to grant pardons, reprieves, and respites and to remit, suspend, or commute any sentence passed by any court, tribunal, or other authority.

On August 24, she returned home after receiving treatment at the hospital for 45 days.

Khaleda has long been battling various ailments, including liver cirrhosis, arthritis, diabetes, and issues related to the kidney, lung, heart, and eyes.

Khaleda’s doctors have been recommending sending her abroad since she was diagnosed with liver cirrhosis in November 2021.

On October 26, 2023, three US specialist doctors completed the hepatic procedure known as the transjugular intrahepatic portosystemic shunt (TIPS procedure) to stop water accretion in Khaleda Zia’s stomach and chest, and bleeding in her liver.

She was placed in Old Dhaka Central Jail on February 8, 2018, after a special court sentenced her to five years in prison in the Zia Orphanage Trust corruption case.

On October 30, 2018, the High Court raised her punishment to 10 years.

Later, she was convicted in the Zia Charitable Trust corruption case.

Through an executive decree, the government temporarily released Khaleda Zia from prison after 776 days during the coronavirus pandemic. Her sentence was suspended on March 25, 2020, provided she remained in her Gulshan home and did not leave the nation.