BARAPUKURIA COALMINE GRAFT CASE
Warrants issued for arrest of
Saifur, Mojahid, 7 others
Khaleda, Nizami, Mannan, Shamsul, Anwar ordered to appear in court Oct 12
Courtesy New Age 7/10/08
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Former prime minister Khaleda Zia and her former cabinet colleagues M Shamsul Islam, MK Anwar, Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan and Matiur Rahman Nizami were on Monday ordered to appear in a
Dhaka metropolitan sessions judge Mohammad Azizul Haque also issued warrants for the arrest of former ministers M Saifur Rahman, Aminul Haque, AKM Mosharraf Hossain and Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mojahid, former acting secretary to the energy and mineral resources ministry Nazrul Islam, former Petrobangla chairman SR Osmani, former Petrobangla director Mainul Ahsan, former Barapukuria Coal Mine Company Ltd managing director Sirajul Islam and Hosaf Group chairman Moazzem Hossain.
The court also ordered the jail authorities to produce the detained former ministers Khandaker Mosharraf Hossain and Altaf Hossain Choudhury in court on October 12.
The court passed the orders accepting the charge sheet submitted by the Anti-Corruption Commission on Sunday which pressed charges against the 16 for embezzlement of Tk 158.71 crore by abusing power in awarding the Chinese CMC Consortium the contract for the Barapukuria mining in 2005.
This is the third case in which Khaleda, also the Bangladesh Nationalist Party chairperson, faces charges pressed so far by the commission and the first after her release on bail on September 11.
The immediate-past prime minister now faces charges pressed earlier by the commission in the GATCO and Niko corruption cases.
The trials in the GATCO and Niko corruption cases, however, remain stalled as the High Court has stayed the proceedings in the cases and granted Khaleda bail.
She is also facing another case filed by the commission on July 13 accusing her of misappropriating Tk 2.1 crore of the Zia Orphanage Trust fund. The High Court on August 26 granted her interim bail for four months in the case, which is now under investigation.
Khaleda was granted interim bail for four months in the case by the High Court on September 10 while Mannan Bhuiyan, Shamsul Islam and MK Anwar obtained interim bail in the case from the same court on August 25 till submission of the charge sheet.
Mannan, also the expelled BNP secretary general, MK Anwar, Shamsul Islam, and Nizami, also the Jamaat-e-Islami amir, will appear in court on October 12 and file fresh petitions seeking bail in the case, their counsels told New Age on Monday.
The nine people, against whom the court issued warrants for their arrest, were shown fugitives.
The charges against Khaleda and the 15 in the Barapukuria coalmine case were pressed under Section 409 of the Penal Code for criminal breach of trust, Section 5(2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act 1947 for criminal misconduct in awarding the Chinese company the contract for mining and under Section 109 of the Penal Code for helping each others in committing the offences.
The charges are punishable with imprisonment for life or 10 years for criminal breach of trust and for seven years for criminal misconduct. In addition, fine may also be imposed on them for both the offences.
The commission’s assistant director Shamsul Alam filed the case with the Shahbagh police on February 26, accusing the 16 persons of embezzling Tk 158.71 crore by awarding the highest bidder the production, operation and maintenance contracts for the coalmine.
According to sources in the commission, the first investigation officer of the case, Md Manirul Haque, also a deputy director of the commission, submitted his report to the commission in May, observing that the investigation did not find sufficient evidence to press charges against Khaleda and other former ministers.
As the ministers had been busy with other business, they did not get enough time to scrutinise the documents of the contract and they signed the documents placed before them by the officers concerned, said the investigation report.
The commission was, however, not satisfied with the first investigation report and in June assigned another deputy director, Abul Kashem Fakir, for further investigation of the case.
In the latest turn of events, the commission on Sunday submitted the charge sheet in the case against all the 16 accused accepting the report submitted by the second investigation officer which recommended pressing charges against the 16 for embezzling Tk 158.71 crore by abusing power.
A Tk 335.08 crore agreement signed with the lowest bidder, Sangdon Ludi Consortium, was scrapped following the company’s demand for an upward revision of the project cost, the charge sheet said.
Although the difference between the lowest and highest bids was Tk 158.71 crore, Khaleda helped in the embezzlement by approving the recommendations of the purchase committee without accepting Petrobangla’s proposal for re-tender, the charge sheet said.
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