Dhaka court on Wednesday sent former Awami League MP and corruption convict Haji Mohammad Selim to jail after he surrendered. Judge Sirajul Islam of Dhaka Special Judge's Court refused him bail after the Dhaka Metropolitan AL joint general secretary turned himself in to the court that had convicted him. The judge also ordered the jail authorities to award him division.

On April 27 last year, he was sentenced to 13 years in jail in his absence on twin charges of suppressing wealth information and accumulating illegal wealth. The judge also fined him Tk 10 lakh with a legal binding that the convict will have to serve another year in prison in failure to pay the fine.

The court sentenced Selim's wife Gulshan Ara to three years in jail for assisting him in accumulating wealth. The court fined her Tk 1 lakh and she will stay six more months in jail if she fails to pay the fine. His wife is still on the run. The sentences is to be effective from the day of their surrender or arrest.

Selim's jail terms—10 years for earning illegal wealth and three years for concealing information—will run back-to-back. The court had also ordered authorities to confiscate illegally obtained wealth worth Tk 27 crore.

Anticorruption Commission assistant director Mohammad Mahbub Alam filed the case with Lalbagh Police Station on Sept 24, 2007. ACC deputy director MD Abu Sayeed, also investigation officer in the case, pressed charges against Selim and his wife by submitting a chargesheet to the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate's Court for Dhaka on Apr 1.

The chargesheet said Selim had earned illegal wealth of Tk 26.92 crore, inconsistent with his known source of income. He suppressed wealth information about Tk 10 crore in the wealth statement submitted to the graft watchdog.
Selim's wife Gulshan assisted her husband in stashing away Selim's Tk 4.88 crore in her ownership, the chargesheet said.Selim and Gulshan recorded Tk 59.37 crore in their statements to the ACC.

A High Court bench had earlier directed 12 "VIP convicts" to turn themselves in to their respective trial courts first and then petition for bail. Accordingly, former communications minister Anwar Hossain Monju and former state minister barrister Shahjahan Omar surrendered on May 6 and former foreign minister M Morshed Khan on May 10. Rashiduzzaman Millat, ex-BNP MP, and former BMA secretary general Dr AZM Zahid Hossain also surrendered in the court.

bdnews24.com