Bangladesh graft probe grabs ex-PM's son

Army-led security forces using emergency powers in a broad-ranging anti-corruption drive arrested another son of former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia on Monday, an official in Bangladesh's interim government said.

The detention of Arafat Rahman, 36, came nearly six weeks after authorities arrested Zia's other son, Tarique Rahman, 40.

"The security forces have detained him. I'm sure there are specific allegations of corruption against him," said M.A. Matin, an adviser to the country's acting government who heads a high-level committee on crime.

Matin provided no details on the arrest of Arafat Rahman, who has shunned politics to run his advertising and ferry businesses. His brother, a textile factory owner who also is a senior leader of his mother's party, is in jail waiting trial on an extortion charge that he denies.

Monday's detention was the latest in a series of arrests since a campaign against corruption was launched Jan. 11 when the military-backed interim government declared a state of emergency.

More than 160 people have been detained in a campaign that has targeted members of both of the country's main political parties _ Zia's Bangladesh Nationalist Party and the Awami League headed by her rival, former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.

The emergency powers were imposed following violent street clashes between rival political groups over electoral reforms, leaving more than 30 people dead. National elections planned for Jan. 22 were postponed indefinitely and all political activity banned.

The government plans to clean up Bangladesh's corruption-riddled politics before balloting is held, hopefully before the end of 2008, interim leader Fakhruddin Ahmed said in a television speech last week.

Transparency International, an independent group based in Germany that studies corruption around the world, has rated this impoverished South Asian nation as one of the world's most corrupt.