The government will not send Bangladesh Nationalist Party chairperson Khaleda Zia back to jail before the next national election, law minister Anisul Huq said on Thursday.

The minister made the remark in response to a question from reporters, after a training programme organised for sub-registrars at Judicial Administration Training Institute in Dhaka.

The government has no plan to change the decision of suspending Khaleda Zia’s sentence as per section 401 of the Criminal Code of Procedure with two conditions, Anisul added.

On September 19, the government extended the suspension of Khaleda’s jail sentence for six more months.

Amid the Coronavirus outbreak, the government suspended Khaleda’s jail sentence for six months through an executive order on March 25, 2020.

The government extended her conditional release in two corruption cases several times.

The former prime minister was sent to Old Dhaka’s Central Jail after she was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment by a special court in the Zia Orphanage Trust corruption case on February 8, 2018.

She was convicted in a second corruption case later.

The 76-year-old BNP chief has been staying at her Gulshan residence since her release from jail. A special team of her personal physicians has been overseeing her treatment.