The New Nation - Internet Edition

Staff Reporter

The Anticorruption Commission yesterday submitted a charge-sheet against detained BNP Senior Joint Secretary-General Tarique Rahman on charges of illegally amassing wealth and suppressing wealth information.

The Commission also approved charge-sheets against Tarique's wife Dr Zobaida Rahman and mother-in-law Syeda Iqbalmand Banu for assisting him in accumulating the wealth violating the law of the land. The ACC also requested a Court in the capital to issue warrant of arrest against all of them, while submitting the charge-sheet.

Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) Assistant Director Md Toufiqul Islam submitted the charge-sheet to Magistrate Md Golam Rabbani at the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate's Court in Dhaka.

The ACC approved the charge-sheet on March 27 against Tarique Rahman, who is the eldest son and political heir of detained former Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia, for illegally amassing property worth about Tk 2.75 crore and concealing wealth to the tune of Tk 2.16 crore.

His wife and mother-in-law claimed that Tk 35 lakh of the alleged illegal earning were in-fact legal since the money was given to her daughter as a gift, although this was disputed by the ACC.

ACC Deputy Director Zahurul Huda filed the case with Kafrul Police Station on September 26 last year.

According to the case details, the accused obtained property worth about Tk 4.82 crore beyond his known sources of income. He also allegedly concealed information on wealth worth around Tk 4.23 crore in his wealth statement to the ACC.

Tarique Rahman submitted a wealth statement of Tk 1.37 crore to the ACC through the authorities of Dhaka Central Jail on June 10 last year.

Talking to journalists after the sitting of the Court, his counsel Advocate Sanaullah Miah said,"The projection of Tk 35 lakh, which was given to her daughter by Tarique Rahman's mother-in-law, in the ACC charge-sheet as his income without known sources of income is not only shocking and it has no legal basis."