A Dhaka court has indicted Sohel Rana, his parents and seven others in a corruption case over the collapse of Rana Plaza and ordered the case to go to trial.
Dhaka Division Special Judge Atowar Rahman passed the order on Sunday and set Jul 5 as the first day for depositions in the corruption case, one of the three lawsuits filed over the nation’s worst industrial disaster.
The court has exempted six suspects from the trial, Mosharraf Hossain Kajol, a lawyer for the Anti-Corruption Commission or ACC, told bdnews24.com.
The accused have pleaded not guilty to the charges and asked for a fair trial.
As many as 1,135 people were killed and over 2,500 injured after Rana Plaza, an eight-storey building housing five garment factories in Savar, collapsed in 2013.
ACC Deputy Assistant Director SM Mofidul Islam filed a case with the Savar Model Police Station in 2014 that involves bribes and building code violations during the construction of Rana Plaza.
But the indictment in the case was delayed by errors, reinvestigations and criticism of the decision to leave out Sohel Rana and include his parents, among the 17 initially accused in the case.
Later, charges were pressed against 18, including Sohel Rana.
A Dhaka special judge’s court ordered a reinvestigation last year after errors were found in the report.
Source: bdnews24