Dhaka, Bangladesh: Former Bangladesh Prime Minister Khaleda Zia died early Tuesday in Dhaka at age 80. She has been struggling with liver cirrhosis, diabetes, arthritis, and heart issues among other age-related ailments.
Announcing her death, her opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) issued a statement that the former PM died just after the Subah (Down) prayer.
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Following her husband, Ziaur Rahman’s assassination in 1981, Zia served as prime minister from 1991-1996, briefly in 1996, and 2001-2006, while locked in a decades-long rivalry with ousted former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.
She was freed from the prison in 2024 after Sheikh Hasina’s fleeing.
