A court in Chittagong yesterday sentenced four people, including two former officials of Krishi Bank, to 10 years in prison for misappropriating Tk2.40 crore from the bank’s Bangladesh Tea Board branch in the district.
The convicts are former manager of the branch Shahed Hasan and its second officer Mir Kashem, Fish Home Limited official Saidul Haque and the company’s accountant Dipak Chowhdury.
Mir Ruhul Amin, judge of Chittagong Divisional Special Judge Court, handed down the verdict.
The four were sentenced after the court found them guilty of the offence beyond doubt, said Anti-Corruption Commission’s (ACC) Public Prosecutor advocate Mezbah Uddin Chowdhury. “All of them are now on the run after walking out of prison on bail.”
The court also fined the convicts Tk60 lakh each, and said they would have to serve one more year in jail upon failure to pay the fine.
Advocate Mezbah said the court had instructed the district collector to collect the fine from movable and immovable assets of the convicts if they failed to pay it.
According to the prosecution, the four convicts embezzled Tk2.40 crore by selling export-quality goods from Fish Home Limited’s warehouse that were mortgaged to that branch of the bank. It was done in violation of the bank’s rules in the early 1990s.
The branch manager, Akikur Rahman Chowhdury, later filed the case with Panchlaish police station on September 24, 1992 against the four men.
Criminal Investigation Department Inspector Tarapad Sikdar probed the case and submitted the charge sheet on January 15, 1998.
The court indicted the four on June 23, 2010.
