Tk 21cr bribery case: Tarique, seven others cleared
A Dhaka court yesterday acquitted BNP acting chairman Tarique Rahman, former state minister for home Lutfozzaman Babar and six others in connection with a Tk 21 crore bribery case.
Tarique has now been acquitted of most of the criminal cases filed against him during the army-backed government in 2007 and 2008 and the Awami League regime.
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel. A graft case in which he was sentenced to nine years in prison has not been dismissed yet, his lawyer Zakir Hossain Bhuiyan told The Daily Star.
He was sentenced to jail in several cases, including the ones filed over a grenade attack on an AL rally. After the fall of the AL regime last year, Tarique was acquitted in five cases.
The six others acquitted in the bribery case are Bashundhara Group Chairman Ahmed Akbar Sobhan alias Shah Alam, his two sons Shafiat Sobhan Sanvir and Sadaat Sobhan, Tarique's personal secretary Mia Nur Uddin Apu, former BNP lawmaker Qazi Saleemul Huq Kamal, and East-West Property Development Ltd Director Abu Sufian.
Judge Mohammad Abu Taher of the Special Judge's Court-3 of Dhaka passed the order in presence of two accused -- Saleemul Huq and Abu Sufian -- at the courtroom, said a court staffer.
In the judgment, the judge wrote that the prosecutors failed to prove the charges of bribery against the accused.
On October 4, 2007, the Anti-Corruption Commission Deputy Assistant Director Abul Kashem filed the bribery case.
However, Tarique and Saleemul Huq were later accused in the case.
The ACC said the eight men accused in the case were involved in receiving and giving bribes so that Sanvir did not face charges for killing Humayun Kabir Sabbir whose body was found outside a building in Bashundhara residential area on July 5, 2006.
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