(ANN/THE DAILY STAR) – Nobel Laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus has been acquitted in a graft case filed by the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC), just four days after being cleared of charges in a labour law violation case.
Nurjahan Begum, the recently sworn-in health adviser and another accused in the graft case, was also acquitted.
The acquittal came yesterday, three days after the interim government’s council of advisers, led by Prof Yunus, took the oath following the resignation of former prime minister Sheikh Hasina amid a mass student-led uprising on August 5.
Judge Md Rabiul Alam of the Special Judge’s Court-4 in Dhaka acquitted Prof Yunus, Nurjahan, and 12 other accused after the ACC requested the court to withdraw the prosecution under Section 494 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, according to ACC official Amir Hossain.
Earlier that day, the anti-graft watchdog approved the withdrawal of the case after reviewing the application submitted by the case’s investigating officer and other relevant records.
This acquittal follows another on August 8, a day before Prof Yunus took his oath as chairman of Grameen Telecom. Prof Yunus, along with Grameen Telecom directors Ashraful Hassan, M Shahjahan, and Nurjahan Begum, was previously acquitted of a labour law violation case in which they had been sentenced to six months in prison and fined Tk 30,000 each on January 1.
On June 12, Prof Yunus, Nurjahan, and 12 others were indicted in the ACC case concerning the misappropriation of approximately Tk 25.22 crore from the Grameen Telecom Workers’ Profit Participation Fund. The court had been scheduled to record witness statements.
On February 1, Investigating Officer Gulshan Anwar Prodhan, a deputy director of the ACC, submitted the charge sheet to the Metropolitan Senior Special Judge’s Court of Dhaka. The charges were accepted on April 2, and the case was subsequently transferred to the Special Judge’s Court-4 for further proceedings.
The other 12 accused include Grameen Telecom Managing Director Nazmul Islam, Directors Ashraful Hassan, Naznin Sultana, Parvin Mahmud, M Shahjahan, and SM Huzzatul Islam Latifee, Sramik-Karmachari Union President Kamruzzaman, General Secretary Firoz Mahmud Hasan, representative Mainul Islam, Jatiya Workers Federation Office Secretary Kamrul Hasan, and lawyers Zafrul Hasan Sharif and Yusuf Ali.
The case was originally filed by Gulshan Anwar at the ACC’s integrated district office in Dhaka on May 30 of last year.
