3 Faridpur AL men remanded

A Dhaka court yesterday placed three Awami League leaders of Faridpur unit on three-day remand each in a Tk 2,000 crore money laundering case.

The accused are -- Mahfuzur Rahman Mamun, Faridpur town AL joint general secretary, Md Moniruzzaman, Faridpur Pourasava extended ward 25 AL general secretary, and Sumon Saha, an AL activist.

Metropolitan Magistrate Md Tofazzal Hossain passed the order after Uttam Kumar Biswas, assistant superintendent of police of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) and also investigation officer of the case, produced them before the court with a seven-day remand prayer.

Earlier in the day, they were shown arrested in the same case following a petition submitted by the IO on July 30.

In yesterday's remand prayer, the IO said the three were directly involved in laundering money.  Moreover, two other accused had earlier confessed to a magistrate where they said the three were involved in money laundering. So, they need to be remanded to know the role of the others in the offences, the IO added.

The defence submitted a petition seeking bail along with cancellation of the remand prayer, saying that their names were not included in the FIR.

The three were arrested on the basis of confessional statements of two brothers -- Sajjad Hossain alias Barkat, former unit Awami League general secretary; and Imtiaz Hasan alias Rubel, former president of Faridpur Press Club -- who were earlier arrested from Faridpur.

Replying to a question, Moniruzzaman and Suman told the court that they were not involved with the money laundering and they are employees of Barkat and Rubel, prime accused in the case.

Another Dhaka court fixed August 12 for hearing on a petition to show Nazmul Islam Khandakar (61), president of Faridpur town unit of AL; Billal Hossain (54), former treasurer of Faridpur Sramik League; and Arifur Rahman (40), general secretary of Faridpur town unit Jubo League, arrested in the same case.