DHAKA, 19 May 2008 — A special court yesterday indicted former Prime Minister Hasina Wajed and seven others in a corruption case. The court, set up in the Parliament complex to try high-profile corruption suspects, passed the order and fixed May 21 for the beginning of the trial.
Hasina, appearing in the dock, confidently pleaded not guilty and voiced doubts about getting justice when the court asked her to plead.
Another detained co-accused, Towfiq-e-Elahi Chowdhury, also pleaded not guilty after the court examined him. He termed the prosecution case a “litany of willful and malicious concoctions.”
Hasina and her co-accused were charged under different section of Bangladeshi law and face jail terms of up to seven years if convicted of corruption, said Chief Special Public Prosecutor Sharfuddin Khan Mukul.
He told reporters outside the courtroom that the prosecution would complete the trial within two months. “It’s a fit case for gratification.”
On Sept. 2 last year, ACC Deputy Director Sabbir Hasan filed a case with police, accusing Hasina and six others of using their influence through collusion in helping a foreign company and its local partners win a deal for setting up three 100-megawatt barge-mounted power plants at Haripur, Khulna and Shikalbaha, depriving the lowest bidder.
The co-accused are former Energy Secretary Towfiq-e-Elahi Chowdhury, former Power Development Board Chairman Noor Uddin Mahmud Kamal, Managing Director of Summit Industries and Mercantile Corporation Private Ltd Aziz Khan, its director Farid Khan, United Group Chairman Hasan Mahmud Raja and its director Abul Kalam Azad.
Also yesterday, a metropolitan court in Dhaka ordered two former influential Cabinet ministers jailed pending trial in another corruption case after they surrendered to the court.
M. Shamsul Islam and Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan were senior ministers in former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia’s Cabinet in 2001-2006. The charges against them involve awarding two contracts for managing container terminals without proper bidding. Also a suspect in the same case is the chief of the country’s largest Islamic party, Matiur Rahman Nizami. He has requested interim bail, but his plea was denied yesterday by the High Court.
Nizami, chief of the Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh party, also served in Zia’s Cabinet as a coalition partner. He remains free and can now appeal to the Supreme Court for bail.
Zia, who is also jailed awaiting trial, faces various charges of corruption.
— With input from agencies
