Graft case against Yunus, 12 others: Court sets March 3 for report submission
A Dhaka court today set March 3 for submission of the probe report in a case filed against Nobel laureate Prof Muhammad Yunus and 12 others for misappropriating about Tk 25 crore of Grameen Telecom Workers' Profit Participation Fund.
Prof Yunus is the chairman of the company.
Judge Md Asaduzzaman of the Metropolitan Senior Special Judge's Court of Dhaka set the date as the investigation officer of the case failed to submit the report before the court today, said court sources.
On May 30 last year, Gulshan Anowar Prodhan, deputy director of the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC), filed the case against Prof Yunus and others with its integrated district office in Dhaka.
The other accused are Grameen Telecom Managing Director Nazmul Islam, Directors Ashraful Hassan, Naznin Sultana, Parvin Mahmud, M Shahjahan, Nurjahan Begum, and SM Huzzatul Islam Latifee, Sramik-Karmachari Union President Kamruzzaman and General Secretary Firoz Mahmud Hasan, lawyers Zafrul Hasan Sharif and Yusuf Ali.
According to the case statement, during the company's 108th board meeting, presided over by Prof Yunus on May 9, 2022, it was decided that a bank account would be opened to distribute Tk 437 crore among the employees as per its agreement with the Grameen Telecom Sramik Karmachari Union.
Sramik-Karmachari Union President Kamruzzmaan and General Secretary Firoz Mahmud signed the agreement on April 27 last year and the account was opened on May 8 with the Dhaka Bank's Gulshan branch.
"Since the bank account was opened after the signing of the agreement, the account number was not supposed to be mentioned in the agreement. But the account number was mentioned proving that the agreement was fake," reads the case statement.
"The Grameen Telecom chairman and the board members in association with each other produced the fake agreement to help misappropriate money and thus committed a crime under the Money Laundering Prevention Act," it adds.
About Tk 364 crore was distributed among 156 employees between May 25 and June 12 2022. However, about Tk 26.22 crore was transferred to another account with Dutch-Bangla Bank between May 17 and May 30 that year.
"The money was transferred to another account without any written or verbal approval from the employees. From that account, the money was transferred to the personal accounts of the employees' union leaders and lawyers," added the case statement.
The ACC found that about Tk one crore was lawyers' fees and the rest of the money was misappropriated by the employee union leaders and lawyers.