Dhaka, June 15 (Reuters): Bangladesh’s army-backed interim government prevented former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who faces charges of extortion, from going abroad, police and her party colleagues said today.

“Immigration officials at the Dhaka airport called Sheikh Hasina in the evening to inform her of a government ban on her going abroad,” said Abdul Mannan Khan, an official of Hasina’s Awami League. “They also asked her not to go to the airport,” he said. “Hasina heeded the restriction and cancelled her planned trip,” Mannan said.

Earlier Hasina, who was hoping to leave Dhaka tonight for London, en route to the US to visit her son, daughter and their families, had told reporters she intended to fly despite the court ban. The court said she was not allowed to leave because her presence in the country was necessary for investigations into charges of corruption levelled against the former Prime Minister. “We conveyed the court order duly to the immigration department at the airport,” inspector-general of police, Nur Mohammad, said.

In April, Bangladesh’s government briefly barred Hasina from returning to Dhaka following an earlier trip to the US. She was stranded in London for a couple of weeks, before the authorities lifted the ban under local and international pressure. Hasina, Prime Minister from 1996 to 2001, denies all the charges against her. Hasina told Bangladesh’s online newspaper www.bdnews24.com that the curb was “a big mistake” by the government. She did not elaborate.

The Awami League chief said earlier today that the charges were false and were part of a conspiracy to keep her from contesting the next elections. She and her party earlier vowed to fight the charges in court.