DHAKA – The Bangladeshi Police has reported that Sheikh Hasina, the Prime Minister Bangladesh, who has been under detention on extortion charges, was charged with corruption on Sunday.

Initiated by the anti-corruption commission of the army-backed interim government, the graft charges articulate that Hasina embezzled some 30 million taka ($435,000) while she was in power between 1996 and 2001. The amount was said to have been embezzled through irregularities from a power plant built in southwestern Khulna and from a land purchase in Dhaka during her tenure.

An officer at Dhaka's Tejgaon police station said, "We will soon start works to probe the charges, brought against the former prime minister by the anti-corruption commission."

Charged with extorting the equivalent of more than $1 million from two businessmen, Hasina has been under detention since July 16 inside a parliament compound building that was turned into a special jail.

Since the interim government took charge in January, over 170 senior politicians, including over a dozen former ministers and a son of Hasina's arch rival, former Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia, have been detained for alleged corruption. Besides, several of the politicians and high officials, who served under both Khaleda and Hasina, have already been convicted and sentenced to various prison terms.