SC clears way for ACC to reinvestigate case against Morshed Khan
The Supreme Court yesterday cleared the way for the Anti-Corruption Commission to reinvestigate the money laundering case against former foreign minister M Morshed Khan, his wife and their son.
The apex court upheld a High Court verdict that permitted the ACC to reinvestigate the case.
A four-member bench of the Appellate Division of the SC, headed by Chief Justice Syed Mahmud Hossain, passed the order through dismissing a leave-to-appeal petition filed by M Morshed, his wife Nasrin Khan and their son Faisal Morshed Khan challenging the HC verdict.
Now, following the SC, ACC will reinvestigate into the case, ACC’s lawyer Khurshid Alam Khan told The Daily Star.
Whether Morshed, his wife and son will have to surrender before a trial court in this regard, will be known after the SC releases full text of its verdict, he added.
Following a revision petition filed by the ACC the HC on November 9, 2016 permitted the ACC to further investigate the money laundering case against them.
The same day, the HC also extended till March 31, 2017 its earlier order of freezing the bank accounts of the trio with Standard Chartered Bank in Hong Kong and ordered them to surrender before a lower court.
After this, a petition was filed by the trio and the Appellate Division later on stayed the order to freeze the bank account.
Additionally, on January 19 last year, they filed the leave to appeal petition with the SC against the HC verdict to reinvestigate the case.
Advocate Khurshid Alam Khan said that the graft watchdog filed the money laundering case against Morshed, Nasrin and Faisal in 2013 and submitted a final report to the lower court in July, 2015 saying no evidence of money laundering was found against them.
The lower court on April 15, 2016 accepted the final report and exempted the three from the money laundering charge.
The Hong Kong police, who froze their bank accounts in 2008 under an administrative order, have meanwhile sent a letter to the ACC asking if they should reopen the accounts as there were no legal bars, the ACC lawyer said.
The accounts were subsequently opened as no evidence of money laundering was found against the three accused.
The ACC then submitted two petitions to a Dhaka court to revive the case and seek permission to reinvestigate the case.
The Dhaka court on June 2, 2016 rejected the petitions and on June 5, 2016 the commission moved the revision petition before the HC challenging the lower court orders.
The HC on June 5, 2016 asked the authorities concerned to freeze the bank accounts of Morshed, his wife and their son with the Hong Kong bank and also asked them to restrain from transferring 16 million Hong Kong dollars from the bank till further orders, he added.
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