Victim now for out-of-court settlement
An investigation by the Anti-Corruption Commission has failed to identify the culprit behind the embezzlement of more than Tk 61 crore from a client’s account at Premier Bank through forged cheques.
The probe team that submitted its report to the ACC last month, however, found involvement of bank’s four officials who had approved the cheques.
It didn’t find any involvement of bank’s then vice chairman BH Haroon, also Awami League lawmaker from Jhalakathi, against whom the victim, businessman Khalilur Rahman, brought the allegation of embezzlement.
The team led by ACC Deputy Director Harunur Rashid sought permission from the ACC to file a case but the commission didn’t approve it on Khalilur’s request.
Speaking to The Daily Star, Khalilur said some people in the government and the bank are persuading him to settle the issue out of court.
“They have asked me not to go to court, saying it would take long to settle the issue through a legal battle. They also assured me that they would help settle the matter outside court as soon as possible,” he said.
ACC Chairman Badiuzzaman told this correspondent, “We have found some bankers’ involvement in the scam. But we have put the process of filing a case on hold following a request from Khalilur. He told us that he was trying to settle the matter with the help of some influential people.”
Asked whether the ACC should allow a complainant to settle such a matter of bank cheque forgery outside court, Badiuzzaman said if a complainant is not interested in legal battle, the ACC could hardly prove such a case before court.
The probe team collected copies of around 300 cheques used for stealing the money from Khalilur’s account between October and November 2008, said a commission official seeking anonymity.
It found that bank’s four officials — Assistant Vice President Zahid Chowdhury, the then manager of Bangshal branch Shamsuddin Chowdhury, officer Ashraful Azam and the then official Moniruzzaman — approved the cheques with forged signatures.
Another top ACC official told this correspondent that they were yet to identify who drew the money with the forged cheques.
“Once the case is filed, we will ask the bank authorities to provide us with footages recorded on their CCTV cameras during the transactions.”
The investigators would then be able to find out who had drawn the money. “Apart from this, we will also be able to seize all the cheques with forged signatures,” said the ACC official.
On request from Khalilur, Bangladesh Bank last year launched an investigation into the alleged embezzlement and found that Premier Bank disbursed the money though the account holder’s signature and those on the cheques didn’t match.
Khalilur and Haroon, who are from the same area in Jhalakathi, know each other for 25 years.
Khalilur, also joint secretary general of Jatiya Party (Manju), said he was a partner in construction business with Haroon and his brother Mojibul Haque Kamal for 12 years. But they didn’t have any written agreements.
Documents show that construction firm Rumi Enterprise, owned by Khalilur, got a Tk 203 crore work order for building 15,000 houses in Sidr affected areas in southern Bangladesh in June 2008. The project was funded by the Saudi government.
In July, Khalilur opened an account with Bangshal branch of Premier Bank to make transactions for the project. He received Tk 203.06 crore from the Saudi government through seven cheques.
Khalilur withdrew Tk 69.11 crore from the account, and kept the remaining Tk 133.95 crore deposited in his account.
When he asked bank’s then Bangshal branch manager Shamsuddin Chowdhury in December to adjust his Tk 4.5 crore loans at bank’s Gulshan branch, Shamsuddin told him that his account had been closed and no money was there.
Source: The Daily Star
