Amir Khasru gets bail
The High Court (HC) granted three months' anticipatory bail to former commerce minister Amir Khasru Mahmud Chowdhury in two corruption cases filed by the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) yesterday.
The vacation bench of justices Mirza Hussain Haider and Mamnoon Rahman also stayed the case proceedings against him for the same period, following writ petitions.
The bench issued separate rules on the government to explain in four weeks why the initiation and continuation of the case proceedings against Amir Khasru should not be declared illegal.
The ex-BNP minister was accused of helping arrange the sale of 18 abandoned government houses at much lower prices at a fake auction and award container-management work at inland container depots in Dhaka and Chittagong to unqualified firm Gatco through corruption.
He secured the bail and the stay orders as the HC had earlier granted bail to the main accused in the two cases and stayed case proceedings against them, his counsel barrister Ruhul Quddus Kajal said.
Amir Khasru filed the writ petitions shortly after coming back home yesterday in the morning. He had been outside the country since August 14 last year.
He told reporters on the court premises that he did not come back earlier because there was no rule of law in the country.
Terming the two cases false, he said, "If I came back earlier, more such cases would have been filed against me."
The ACC filed the fake-auction case with Motijheel Police Station on March 29 last year. Former housing minister Mirza Abbas, ex-prime minister Khaleda Zia's political secretary Harris Chowdhury, three retired secretaries and high officials from the Rajdhani Unnayan Kartripakkha and Power Development Board were also accused in the case.
The Gatco case was filed on September 2 last year. Apart from Amir Khasru, BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia, Jamaat-e-Islami Ameer Motiur Rahman Nizami and 20 others were sued for causing a loss of over Tk 1,000 crore to the state exchequer through the Gatco deal.
Advocate Khondker Mahbub Uddin Ahmed argued for the petitioner.
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