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Bangladeshi ex-PM's son sentenced to 7 years in money laundering case

Xinhua, July 21, 2016 Adjust font size:

A High Court Division Bench in Bangladesh has awarded former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia's eldest son Tarique Rahman a sentence of seven years in jail after scrapping a lower court order that had acquitted him in the money laundering case.

The High Court division bench also upheld the previous lower court verdict of seven years of jail term for Rahman's close business associate Giasuddin Al Mamun , who has remained behind the bars since March 26, 2007, in the same case.

Mamun's previous fine amount of 400 million taka (5.13 million U.S. dollars) has been commuted and levelled with Tarique Rahman at 200 million taka (2.50 million U.S. dollars) by the bench.

A Dhaka court in November 2013 acquitted former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia's eldest son Rahman of money laundering charge.

Bangladesh's Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) accused Rahman and Mamun in 2009 of transferring 204.1 million taka (2.62 million U.S. dollars) to Singapore between 2003 and 2007.

According to the case statement, Mamun extracted 204.1 million taka bribe from a local construction company and allegedly deposited the money in a Singapore bank, from where Rahman withdrew some money.

The chief prosecutor of the ACC, Anisul Haq, said he would appeal against the verdict.

In May 2013 the court issued the warrant of arrest, saying it would ask the Interpol to help detain Rahman, also a senior vice chairman of Khaleda's Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), as he has been living in London.

Rahman, also deputy chief of Bangladesh's largest opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), was arrested on March 7, 2007 on charges of corruption during the 2007-2008 military-backed caretaker government.

He went to London after he was released on bail in September 2008 for treatment reportedly on condition of not participating in any political activities during his stay there.

Khaleda, leader of the BNP, often says political row is to blame in her son' prosecutions during Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina 's incumbent government.

Since the end of her tenure in 2006, her eldest son Rahman faced over a dozen of cases on charges of corruption, extortion and grenade attacks. Enditem