Five graft suspects sent to jail

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Five graft suspects including two former ministers, a lawmaker and a bureaucrat arrested on the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) office premises on Sunday were sent to jail yesterday with their bail prayers rejected.

The five arrestees are former housing and public works minister and BNP leader Mirza Abbas, former civil aviation and tourism minister and AL leader Engineer Mosharraf Hossain, ex-lawmaker from the BNP Hafiz Ibrahim, former power secretary ANH Akhtar Hossain and Dhaka City Corporation (DCC) Ward Commissioner Abdul Qayyum.

Four of them — Mosharraf, Hafiz, Akhtar and Qayyum — were sent to jail as execution of their one-month detention proposals was pending. Mirza Abbas was shown arrested in a regular case and sent to jail.

Additional District Magistrate (ADM) will execute the proposals for detention of the four sought by the government, sources said.

Under tight security, police produced the five arrestees before the Court of Chief Metropolitan Magistrate, Dhaka, at 4:00pm with proposals for detaining all but Mirza Abbas for one-month in jail custody under the Special Powers Act and the Emergency Ordinance of 2007.

Mosharraf, Hafiz, Akhter and Qayyum were shown arrested in cases filed against them for creating panic among the people, and for corruption, while Mirza Abbas in a case filed for illegal possession of local and foreign currencies.

Forwarding reports on the four alleged they had earned huge amounts of money through corruption. Moreover, Mosharraf, Hafiz and Qayyum are godfathers of criminals and grabbed lands forcibly as no one dared to stand against them.

Akhter, when he was power secretary, misappropriated a huge amount of money and had earlier held a meeting with former officials to stand against the government. So, they should be in jail custody to prevent them from doing such offences any more, the forwarding reports added.

Mirza Abbas had also earned a huge amount of money through unbridled corruption, and there was a suspicious transaction from his bank accounts. So, he should be in jail custody until investigation into the matter ends, the forwarding report said.

Defence lawyers for all the arrestees submitted separate petitions seeking bail saying the charges brought against them were false, fabricated and concocted. So, their clients should be granted bail.

After hearing both the sides, Metropolitan Magistrate Mohammad Shamsul Alam rejected their bail prayers and ordered sending them to Dhaka Central Jail.

Abbas case

The joint forces seized a huge sum of local and foreign currencies and other items from Mirza Abbas’ South Shahjahanpur residence in the capital on February 4.

Motijheel police filed a case against him under the Special Powers Act, Money Laundering Act and Excise Act on Saturday.

The items seized include sales slips for gold ornaments worth Tk 40 lakh, 4,600 US dollars, 17,000 bahts, 418 Singapore dollars, 432 Malaysian ringgits, several mobile phone sets and five passports.

Complainant of the case Sub-Inspector Rafiqul Islam alleged that Abbas had kept those in his possession evading a huge amount of taxes.

Mir Helal’s detention challenged

The High Court (HC) yesterday issued a rule asking the government to explain why detention of Barrister Mir Mohammad Helal Uddin, son of detained former state minister Mir Nasir Uddin, would not be declared illegal, says a press release.

An HC bench comprising Justice Mohammad Abdul Wahhab and Justice Mohammad Emdadul Haq passed the order following a writ petition, filed by Helal’s brother-in-law, challenging legality of the detention order on him on February 24.

The joint forces arrested Helal from his Gulshan residence on February 22 on charge of withdrawing Tk 3 crore from the joint accounts with his father recently.

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