ACC submits charge sheet against 25
The Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) probing the Hall-Mark and Sonali Bank loan scam cases on Monday submitted a charge sheet accusing 25 persons, including Hall-Mark bosses, Sonali Bank senior officials and a union parishad chairman.
All the 25 people were earlier found guilty in swindling out of Tk 4,100 crore out of the bank using forged document.
The ACC findings show that Sonali Bank’s Ruposhi Bangla Hotel branch gave Hall-Mark the money as loan between October 2011 and May 2012.
Of the accused, Hall-Mark Chairman Jasmine Islam is now on bail while its Managing Director Tanvir Mahmud and six other high-ups were earlier arrested and now in custody. Seventeen other accused are on the run.
According to a Bangladesh Bank investigation in May 2012, Hall-Mark and five other companies in connivance with some officials of the state-run bank had taken Tk 3,547 crore in loans from the bank’s Ruposhi Bangla Hotel branch by using forged documents.
Of the sum, Hall-Mark alone took around Tk 2,600 crore.
Seven investigation officers (IOs) submitted the charge sheets with the court of Chief Metropolitan Magistrate in Dhaka around 3:30pm Monday.
During the submission of the charge sheets, the IOs also appealed with the court to issue arrest warrants against the 17 fugitive accused.
Earlier on September 16, the ACC approved the charge sheets excluding eight Sonali Bank officials previously named in the FIR (first information report), and included the name of the bank’s assistant general manager.
The charge sheet excluded Sonali Bank general manager and the whistleblower ANM Mashrurul Huda Siraj; its former general manager Sabita Siraj; deputy managers Bhagobati Majumder and Kaniz Fatema Chowdhury; assistant general managers Ashraf Ali Patwari, Abul Hassan and Khurshid Alam, and former senior officer of the bank Mohammad Wahiduzzaman.
The investigators also did not find any involvement of the bank’s board of member and the premier’s adviser Syed Modasser Ali, whose name surfaced after the detection of the largest ever loan scam of the country.
The charge sheeted Hall-Mark officials are: General Manager Tusher Ahmed, now in jail; and officials Jahangir Alam, Mir Zakaria, Ziaur Rahman, Shahidul Islam and Abdur Basir.
The charge sheet also bears the names of former manager of bank's AKM Azizur Rahman, its assistant general manager Saiful Hasan, executive officer Abdul Matin and senior executive officer Meherun Nesa Mary.
It also accused the bank’s Managing Director Humayun Kabir, deputy managing directors Mainul Haque and Atiqur Rahman, now in jail, general managers Nani Gopal Nath and Mir Mahidur Rahman, now in jail, deputy general managers Sheikh Altaf Hossain, and Shafijuddin Ahmed, both in prison now, and assistant general manager Kamrul Islam Khan.
Besides, Jamal Uddin Sarker, chairman of Tetulbari Union Parishad in Savar, was made accused in the charge sheet as he had issued fake trade licenses to Hall Mark Group.
The anti-graft body on October 4 last year filed the cases against 27 top officials of Sonali Bank and Hall-Mark Group for their involvement in the financial scam.
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