Bangladesh arrests brother of ex-PM for graft

DHAKA (Reuters) - Bangladesh has arrested the younger brother of detained former Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia for alleged corruption, police said on Saturday.

Shamim Iskandar, a retired flight engineer of Biman Bangladesh Airlines, was arrested on Friday night as the Anti-Corruption Commission filed charges against him for amassing wealth illegally.

His arrest came a day after Khaleda's younger son, Arafat Rahman, was released on an eight-week parole for medical treatment.

"It is an action to perpetuate pressure on the Khaleda Zia by the government," Khondakar Delwar Hossain, secretary-general of Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), told reporters.

Arafat, a businessman, was arrested with his mother in September last year, five months after his elder brother Tareque Rahman was detained.

They, along with more than 170 key political figures including paroled former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, have been held for alleged corruption and are facing trials by special courts under emergency power rules.

Arafat along with wife and two daughters left Dhaka for Bangkok Saturday afternoon, to get treatment for his acute asthma, immigration officials and BNP leaders said.

The army-back interim government that has been running the country since January last year has pledged to clean up politics before an election it has promised to hold by the end of the year.