Nadim, Millat sent to jail on surrender

Former BNP lawmakers and fugitive convicts Nadim Mostafa and M Rashiduzzaman Millat were sent to jail after they surrendered before courts in Rajshahi and Dhaka yesterday.
In Rajshahi, second court of Additional Sessions Judge Lutfa Begum passed the order to send Nadim Mostafa to Rajshahi Central Jail rejecting his bail prayer when he was produced before it yesterday noon in two criminal cases in which he was sentenced to different terms.
The court also ordered the jail authorities to provide him division as per the jail code.
At around 11:45 am, Nadim Mostafa along with some lawyers went to the court and surrendered before it.
He claimed himself innocent before his supporters who had been taken to the court premises by 10 buses from different upazila and said the cases were filed against him during the army-backed caretaker government for harassment.
Nadim's lawyer barrister AKM Fakrul Islam said his client appeared before the trial court as per order of the High Court (HC). His client will also surrender before the court within in a short time in seven other cases filed against him, Fakrul said.
An HC bench on May 3 ordered Nadim to surrender at the trial court within two weeks in connection with two cases while another HC bench on May 11 ordered him to surrender within eight weeks in seven other cases.
A Rajshahi court on August 14, 2007 sentenced Nadim to 10 years' rigorous imprisonment (RI) in connection with an extortion case in Durgapur upazila while another court on July 3, 2007gave him five years' imprisonment in a fraud case.
The seven cases were filed with Ramna police station in Dhaka and Rajshahi, Naogaon and Natore between 2004 and 2007 on different charges, including abetting militancy and misappropriation of state money.
His name was dropped from at least three cases, filed against him for patronising militancy of banned Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh.
EX-BNP MP MILLAT
Former BNP lawmaker M Rashiduzzaman Millat was also sent to jail after he surrendered before a Dhaka court yesterday in connection with a graft case in which he was sentenced to eight years' RI in absentia.
Judge Firoz Alam of Special Court-1 passed the order rejecting Millat's bail prayer when he appeared before it. The court also ordered the jail authorities to provide him with first class division in jail as his lawyers prayed for it.
Millat was shown arrested in a tax evasion case, filed by the National Board of Revenue (NBR) on October 7, 2007.
Moving the bail petition, Millat's lawyers told the court that their client had earlier appeared before the HC challenging the legality of the conviction and sought bail in the case. After the hearing, the HC had given a split verdict on the issue. Later another bench on May 3 asked their client to surrender before the trial court within two weeks.
On November 28, 2007, he was sentenced to six years' imprisonment for evading taxes worth Tk 1 crore by concealing information and also filing false information about his wealth in tax returns submitted to the NBR.
On January 29 last year, the same court sentenced him to eight years' imprisonment on charges of amassing wealth beyond his known sources of his income and giving false wealth statement.
Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) Deputy Director Mobara Khanom filed the case on June 3, 2007. Millat was among 50 graft suspects on the first list the ACC published on February 18, 2007.
Meantime, Jatiya Party (Manju) Chairman Anwar Hossain Manju, former foreign minister M Morshed Khan and ex-state minister for law barrister Shahjahan Omar were also sent to jail on surrender in separate graft cases.