The Manabjamin newspaper yesterday printed a signed statement of Tarique given to intelligence agencies on March 12 following his arrest on March 8.

BNP's Senior Joint Secretary General Tarique Rahman blamed his close friend and business associate Giasuddin Al Mamun for most of the corruption during the regime of the immediate past BNP-led government, but admitted to having the knowledge of and consent to Mamun's acts.

Tarique also said Mamun had given him a supplementary debit card which he occasionally used to withdraw money from Mamun's overseas bank accounts.

He said Mamun, who is also in jail awaiting trial, donated large sums of money towards Tarique's political campaigns, which in his own words, 'was ethically wrong'.

"I asked him about his illegal income, but he denied it. I naively believed him," he said adding, "That is how I have become inadvertently involved in Mamun's corruption."

"I ask the people to forgive me. I consciously or unconsciously patronised the corruption of Mamun and his associates,'' the statement read.

In the brief statement, Tarique also asked forgiveness from god, his family and from all activists, sympathizers and leaders of BNP as he described how he shared the illegal income of Mamun deposited in foreign banks.

He said Mamun kept him as a partner in different businesses 'verbally', under his group of companies, the One Group, and siphoned parts of the illegal income to a foreign bank outside Bangladesh and gave him a supplementary debit card to be used whenever required.

In the statement, Tarique also admitted to Mamun regularly giving him money to bear the expenses of his political activities, according to the Manabjamin report.