A former Prime Minister of Bangladesh and one of the country's central political figures has been charged with murder as part of the continuing crackdown on the country's ruling elite by its temporary, military-backed Government.

Sheikh Hasina Wajed was one of 55 politicians and activists charged today in connection with the deaths of at least five people during a riot in Dhaka last October. Forty-six of those charged were members of Mrs Wajed's Awami League of opposition parties.

The other nine were members of Jamaat-e-Islami, Bangladesh's main Islamist party, including its leader, Matiur Rahman Nizami. Activists from the two movements fought a bloody street battle last year during protests demanding electoral reforms.

The charges were announced by Police Sub-inspector AKM Idris Hossain today and form part of the wider campaign that has led to the detention of more than 160 members of Bangladesh's warring political establishment in recent months. A further 30,000 people have also been arrested as part of the effort to restore order, of whom at least 19 are believed to have died in custody.

Bangladesh is currently under the control of an interim Government that was appointed to oversee elections last year but ended up cancelling them in January after a series of riots that left 45 dead and were threatening to tip the country into chaos.

The Government is led by Fakhruddin Ahmed, a former World Bank official, and backed by the military and says it will hold elections as soon as calm is restored, although officials from Bangladesh's Election Commission say that it may take up 18 months to compile accurate voter lists. More than 12 million duplicate names were found on the rolls for January's aborted contest.

Spokesmen for both Mrs Wajed, 59, and Mr Nizami dismissed the murder charges laid against them today, saying that the cases would not stand up in court. But the accusations will further restrict the actions of two of the significant players in Bangladeshi politics.

Mrs Wajed governed the country from 1996 to 2001 and has alternated in and out of power with her one-time ally and great rival, Khaleda Zia, who has been Bangladesh's only other Prime Minister since the fall of its military dictatorship in 1990.

Mrs Zia, the leader of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, is living under virtual arrest since giving up power last October and her son has been imprisoned for corruption. There have been reports this week that she is planning to flee the country for Saudi Arabia. Mrs Zia's former husband, General Ziaur Rahman, governed Bangladesh from 1977 to 1981, when he was assassinated.

Mrs Wajed, whose father was the country's first leader, and also assassinated, is currently in America where she is visiting her children, but was expected to return to Dhaka any day to fight a separate investigation which has accused her of extorting $400,000 during her spell in power.

Despite the apparently indefinite delay of elections and prosecution of the country's political establishment, most Bangladeshi political analysts say the caretaker government has given Bangladesh, a chronically poor Muslim nation, a chance to steady itself before falling into bitter and violent division.

The international community has also approached the country's delicate state with caution. The American Ambassador to Dhaka said today that new elections were "a matter for the Bangladeshi government to decide." Patricia Butenis added: "But the US. would expect the interim government to hold the polls as early as possible after completing all arrangements for a free and fair vote.”

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