A Dhaka court on Thursday placed BNP leader Dr Khandaker Mosharraf Hossain on a three-day remand for interrogation in a case of money laundering.
Metropolitan magistrate Shamsul Arefin granted the remand for the former health minister upon an appeal filed by ACC deputy director Ahsan Ali.
The court placed him on the remand a day after his arrest from his Gulshan House on Wednesday night in the money laundering case filed by the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC).Mosharraf Hossain, a standing committee member of the BNP, allegedly laundered around Tk. 9.53 crore by misusing his power when he was health minister of the BN-Jamaat alliance government from 2001-06.
Masud Ahmed Talukder, lawyer of the BNP leader, filed a bail petition with remand rejection plea in the case.
After hearing, the court granted three days’ remand and rejected the bail plea.
The ACC produced Mosharraf before the court after completing around three-hour interrogation at the ACC head office.
As Mosharraf was produced before the court, he sought justice saying that the case was destined to harass him for political reason.
“I earned the money while I was studying and teaching in the United Kingdom during 1970 to 1975. I invested the earned money in London share market. Later, the money was made fixed deposit receipt in the name of my wife Bilkis Akter Hossain,” Mosharraf claimed during the hearing.
The Appellate Division of the Supreme Court on February 24 cancelled the High Court order that granted anticipatory bail for six months to Mosharraf in the money laundering case.
The ACC’s director Nasim Anwar on February 6 filed the case with Ramna police station in the capital. On February 10, the High Court granted him anticipatory bail for six months.
According to the first information report (FIR), Mosharraf had sent the money abroad between 2001 and 2006 when he was the health and family welfare minister of the BNP-Jammat government.
The FIR said that Mosharraf had opened a joint account in the UK in his own and his wife Bilkis Akter Hossain’s names. He had opened the account with Lloyds TSB Offshore Private Banking, Guernsey, Channel Island, GY 14EN, UK, the report said.
The ACC report said they had collected the documents from the UK with the help of the attorney general of Bangladesh and the Bangladesh Finical Integrity Unit of the Bangladesh Bank in March 2013.
The FIR also said that the commission would investigate Bilkis Akter’s involvement in the laundering case.
Meanwhile, BNP joint secretary Rizvi Ahmed termed the money laundering case against Mosharraf “false” and demanded his unconditional release.
He was addressing reporters at a press conference at the BNP’s central office in the capital on Thursday. – Staff Reporter
