Money laundering: AB Bank boss remanded

A Dhaka court has granted police three days to grill businessman Saiful Haque in a case involving the laundering of the AB Bank’s Tk 1.65 billion funds.
Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Abu Sayeed also granted bail to the bank’sformer chairman M Wahidul Haque and senior executive Abu Hena Mostafa Kamal in the case started by the Anti-Corruption Commission on Thursday.
Motijheel Police Station Sub-Inspector Golam Rabbani produced the trio before the court and sought to grill them in custody for 10 days while the lawyers for the defendants appealed that they be set free on bail.
Metropolitan Sessions Judge’s Court Public Prosecutor Abdullal Abu and an ACC lawyer argued for the remand while Abdur Rauf and Prashanta Karmakar represented the accused persons at the hearing.
After hearing their arguments, judge Sayeed ordered the remand of Saiful but bailed Wahidul and Abu Hena on Tk 10,000 bonds.
Earlier in the day, ACC Assistant Director Gulshan Anwar started the case against eight people at Motijheel Police Station and arrested the three.
The others accused in the case are former managing directors of the bank Md Fazlur Rahman and Shamim Ahmed Chowdhury, Head of Offshore Banking Unit or OBU Mohammad Lokman, Head of Corporate and Structured Finance Division Mahfuz-Ul-Islam and Senior Vice-President Md Nurul Azim.
In the AB Bank money-laundering scam probe, the ACC has questioned 16 people, including the three held on Thursday and two former managing directors and six current directors.