Staff Reporter :
The High Court (HC) on Wednesday ordered former Foreign Minister M Morshed Khan, his wife Nasrin Khan and their son Faisal Morshed Khan to surrender to a lower court within six weeks in a money laundering case.
A HC bench comprising Justice M Enayetur Rahim and Justice J B M Hassan also permitted the ACC to start investigation into the money laundering case.
Delivering a verdict on a revision petition filed by the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC), the High Court extended till March 31 next year its earlier order for freezing the bank accounts of Morshed, Nasrin and their son Faisal maintained with Standard Chartered Bank in Hong Kong.
ACC Counsel Khurshed Alam Khan said, the three accused had been directed to surrender within six weeks in a senior special court of Dhaka. The High Court at the same time asked the lower court to grant them bail after their surrender.
On June 5, 2016 HC also issued a rule upon the accused to explain as to why the lower court order accepting the final report acquitting the three accused of charges in the case should not be declared illegal and as to why directives should not be given for further investigation into the case.
According to documents, the ACC filed the case in 2013 and submitted a final report in a Dhaka court in July 2015 saying that they did not launder money. The court accepted the report on April 15 this year and exempted these three.
Hong Kong police, who had frozen the accounts in 2008 under an administrative order, sent a letter to ACC with the request to let the police know whether the legal proceedings was going on as they planned opening of the accounts, according to the ACC.
ACC then submitted two petitions in the Dhaka court seeking to revive and reinvestigate the case. The court rejected the petitions on June 2 and ACC moved the revision petition on June 5 challenging the rejection.
