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GATCO Corruption: Charges against Khaleda to be heard on June 5

  • Politics
  • 11 May, 2022 14:00:24

Photo: Collected

News Desk: The court has fixed June 5 for hearing of charges against BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia and other accused in the GATCO corruption case.

Judge Ali Hossain of Dhaka's Special Court No. 3, located at Keraniganj Central Jail, was scheduled to hear the case on Tuesday (May 10). Khaleda Zia could not appear in court as she was ill. The judge granted the application and set a new date.

On September 2, 2006, Deputy Director of the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) Golam Shahriar Chowdhury filed a case against the then Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, her youngest son Arafat Rahman Koko and 13 others at the Tejgaon police station.

Khaleda Zia and Koko were arrested the day after the case. The case was included in the Emergency Powers Act on September 16 of that year. Chargesheets were filed against 24 people, including Khaleda Zia, on May 13 of the following year.

It is said that the accused have caused a loss of Tk 14 crore 56 lakh 37 thousand 617 to the state by giving the job of container handling of Kamalapur ICD of Dhaka and Chittagong port to the contractor GATCO in collusion with each other.

Six of the 24 accused in the case have already died. They are: former minister M Saifur Rahman, Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan, MK Anwar, former Jamaat-e-Islami chief Matiur Rahman Nizami, Chittagong Port chief finance and accounting officer Ahmed Abul Kashem and BNP chairperson's younger son Arafat Rahman Koko.

The other accused are- former BNP minister M Shamsul Islam, former state minister for energy AKM Mosharraf Hossain, former minister Dr. Khandaker Mosharraf Hossain, former chairman of Chittagong Port Authority Commodore Zulfiqar Ali, wife of late minister Colonel (retd) Akbar Hossain Jahanara Akbar, two sons Ismail Hossain Simon and AKM Musa Kajal, Ehsan Yusuf, former shipping secretary Zulfiqar Haider Chowdhury, Chittagong Former members of Port Authority AK Rashid Uddin Ahmed, Director of Global Agrotrade Pvt Ltd (GATCO) Shahjahan M Hasib, Directors of GATCO Syed Tanvir Ahmed and Syed Ghalib Ahmed, Former Chairman of Chittagong Port Authority ASM Shahadat Hossain, Former Director (Transport) M Sanwar Hossain and former port member Lutful Kabir.

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