Although the Anti Corruption Commission (ACC) team could not collect substantial documents related to the Padma Bridge graft case during its recent Canada visit, ACC chairman Ghulam Rahman on Sunday said the visit has been satisfactory.“The team has established a link (with Canadian authorities) to collect information and documents to complete the investigation, and this is satisfactory to me,” he told reporters in front of the ACC headquarters while leaving his office in the afternoon.
Ghulam Rahman said this is quite impossible to achieve all successes through one visit. “The ACC team, if necessary, may visit Canada again.”
ACC legal adviser Anisur Rahman, who visited Canada, said the ACC is unable to disclose the information gathered from Canada.
“We visited Canada to collect information in a legal way. We’ve started the process to collect information… we’ll disclose all the information in due time,” he said.
On May 19, the two-member ACC team left for Canada to complete its ongoing investigation into the much-talked-about Padma Bridge graft case and it returned home recently.
The team members were ACC legal adviser advocate Anisul Haque and investigation officer of the Padma graft case Mirza Zahidul Alam.
As two Canadian nationals, reportedly involved in Padma graft conspiracy, are currently facing trial in a Canadian court, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) seized some documents in this regard.
The ACC has almost completed the investigation into the Padma graft case in Bangladesh part and it is waiting to complete the remaining investigation on the Canadian side.
On December 17 last year, the ACC filed a case against seven people for their alleged involvement in the Padma Bridge project dropping the names of key graft suspects former Communications Minister Syed Abul Hossain and former State Minister for Foreign Affairs Abul Hasan Chowdhury.
The accused in the case were Bridge Division secretary Musharraf Hossain Bhuiyan, superintending engineer (river control) of Bangladesh Bridge Authority Kazi M Ferdous, executive engineer (bridge construction and maintenance) of Roads and Highways Department M Riaz Ahmed Zaber, deputy managing director of Engineering and Planning Consultant Limited Mohammad Mustafa, former director (international project division) of SNC Lavalin Inc Mohammad Ismail, former vice president (international project division) of SNC Lavalin Romesh Shah and Kevin Wallace of the SNC Lavain, a Canadian consultancy firm.
Earlier, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police seized Ramesh’s diary where he had mentioned Syed Abul Hossain as the recipient of 4 percent out of 10 percent (Tk 38 crore) bribe from the supervision work money and the ACC is trying to collect the copy of the diary. (Source: UNB)
