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Download PDF Ismail Hossain Simon, son of a late shipping minister also BNP leader Col (retd) Akbar Hossain, yesterday made a confessional statement before a magistrate, implicating himself in a graft case in which former premier Khaleda Zia and her younger son Arafat Rahman Koko are also defendants.
Anti-corruption Commission’s (ACC) Deputy Director Zahirul Huda, who is the investigation officer in the case, arrested Simon, also an accused in the case, from Gulshan-1 area with the help of the joint forces during a raid in a market around 12:30pm.
Police said soon after the arrest, Simon was handed over to Gulshan police who filed a general diary in this connection.
A bearded Simon was taken to the court of Metropolitan Magistrate SM Ferdous Alam around 4:30pm, where his statement was recorded.
SIX EX-MINISTERS TO BE QUIZZED TODAY
The ACC will quiz six former ministers today in connection with the graft case filed against 13 people including Khaleda Zia for violating tender conditions in appointing Global Agro Trade (Private) Company Ltd (GATCO) for handling containers at Dhaka Inland Container Depot (ICD), and Chittagong Port ICD yard despite the company’s lack of experience and skill.
The ACC asked eight former ministers of the immediate past BNP-led four-party alliance government to be present at the commission’s office today for interrogation in connection with the charges as all of them had been members of the Cabinet Purchase Committee which had awarded GATCO the contract.
Notices were sent to former finance minister M Saifur Rahman, former LGRD minister Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan, former health minister Dr Khandaker Mosharraf Hossain, former information minister M Shamsul Islam, former commerce minister Amir Khasru Mahmud Chowdhury, former state minister for energy AKM Mosharraf Hossain, and former industries minister Motiur Rahman Nizami, who is also the chief of Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh.
Khandaker Mosharraf Hossain and AKM Mosharraf Hossain are currently in jail while Amir Khasru Mahmud Chowdhury is on the lam.
Responding to the ACC notice, Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan, Jamaat Ameer Motiur Rahman Nizami, and BNP Vice-president MK Anwar confirmed that they will go to the commission’s secretariat today.
“I will go although I did not receive any letter from the ACC till now,” expelled BNP secretary general Mannan Bhuiyan said at 2:00pm yesterday while talking to reporters in his Gulshan residence.
Mannan Bhuiyan also said he already talked to Saifur Rahman and MK Anwar regarding the matter.
When asked, an official of Jamaat’s central office and a relative of MK Anwar said Nizami and Anwar both will report to the ACC responding to the notice sent by it.
“So far I know that the notices have reached the addresses,” ACC Secretary Mukhles Ur Rahman told reporters during a routine news briefing at the commission’s secretariat yesterday.
He warned that the commission will take actions according to the rules if anyone refuses to report to it. He also said he did not receive any application for postponing the reporting schedule.
With the arrest of Simon, nine of the 13 accused in the case are now in jail. On Saturday the ACC arrested Chittagong Port Authority’s ex-chairman AMM Shahadat Hossain, its ex-director Luthful Kabir, another ex-director (transport) AM Sanwar Hossain, and its former chief finance and accounts officer Ahmed Abul Qashem. Directors of GATCO Syed Galib Ahmed and Syed Tanveer Ahmed were also arrested and gave confessional statements.
Khaleda Zia and her son Koko are also in detention following their arrest from their cantonment residence on September 3 in connection with the case.
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