A Bangladeshi businessman who accused former premier Sheikh Hasina Wajed of extortion, asked the court to drop the case he filed last year after the army declared emergency rule, dpa reported.
"I don't wish to be plaintiff in the case any longer. Lodging the case was unexpected and undesired on my part," Azam Jahangir Chowdhury, chief executive officer of East Coast Trading Limited, said in his brief to the home ministry.
Chowdhury filed the case on June 13, 2007 accusing Hasina, her sister Sheikh Rehana and cousin Sheikh Fazlul Karim Selim of extorting 440,690 dollars for a contract to build a power plant.
Hasina was detained by the military-backed government about a month after the case was filed with police.
She is free now and leading her Awami League party in the country's ninth parliamentary elections, after higher courts halted proceedings of all cases filed during the interim administration.
Chowdhury called the extortion case "a misunderstanding," and said he hoped the former prime minister would not retaliate against him.
His appeal came only 15 days ahead of the general elections to return the country to democracy.