Ruling Awami League MP Abdur Rahman Badi has been convicted in a case for concealing his wealth and for discrepancies about his possessions.
A Dhaka court ordered three years in prison and slapped a Tk 1 million fine on the lawmaker from Cox’s Bazar in the case filed by the Anti-Corruption Commission.
The Court of Dhaka’s Third Special Judge Abu Ahmed Jamadar delivered the verdict on Sunday with Badi on the dock.
Defence counsels said they would challenge the verdict in the High Court.
The State called 13 witnesses for depositions during the case.
On May 7 last year, the ACC’s investigation officer Deputy Director Manjil Morshed submitted the chargesheet against Badi in court.
According to the case details, Badi provided false information in his affidavits submitted to the Election Commission in 2008 and 2013 and also sought to conceal information on his personal wealth worth Tk 108.68 million.
The chargesheet said Badi had accumulated more than Tk 63 million disproportionate to the known sources of his income and concealed information from the ACC on assets worth more than Tk 39 million.
Badi was arrested and put in jail for three weeks in October 2014. He later secured bail from the High Court and was released.
The MP, honoured for being the highest taxpayer of Cox’s Bazar in 2014, was also named in a Department of Narcotics Control (DNC) list of suspected methamphetamine-based yaba tablet trade ringleaders.
A government investigation last year revealed that Badi controlled the principal point of trans-border entry of the contraband drug.
The DNC report said he controls the route and many others work under him in the illegal drug trade.
Source: Bd news24
