Niko graft case: 2 Canadian cops give testimony
Two officials of Royal Canadian Mounted Police today narrated before a Dhaka court how some people, including a former Bangladeshi minister received bribes from Niko, a Canadian Oil and Gas Exploration Company, to award a gas exploration and extraction deal to the company.
The witnesses were earlier summoned, asking them to appear before the court today in connection with the Niko graft case filed against BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia and seven others.
The two officials are Kelvin Duggan and Lloyd Schoepp, ACC lawyer Khurshid Alam Khan said.
Judge Sheikh Hafizur Rahman of the Special Judge's Court-9 of Dhaka recorded statements of the witnesses at the makeshift court set up inside the Dhaka Central Jail in Keraniganj.
The witnesses, however, did not involve Khaleda Zia with the incident. So, her lawyers declined to cross-examine the witnesses.
After their statements, defence lawyers for two accused -- BNP acting chairman Tarique Rahman's close friend Giausuddin Al Mamun and former Dhaka Club president Selim Bhuiyan -- completed cross-examined Lloyd Schoepp.
The court fixed tomorrow for the next hearing so that the lawyers could complete the cross-examination of Kelvin Duggan.
Khaleda Zia, who was earlier exempted from appearing in personal, was represented by advocate Ziauddin Zia in the court.
The BNP chairperson is now undergoing treatment at Evercare Hospital.
The Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) filed the case in December 2007, accusing Khaleda and several others of abusing power to award a gas exploration and extraction deal to Canadian company Niko when she was prime minister between 2001 and 2006.
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