Appeals court stays bail granted to BNP’s Khandaker Mosharraf Hossain

The Appellate Division of the Supreme Court has stayed the bail for senior BNP leader Khandaker Mosharraf Hossain in a money laundering case.

The four-member appeals bench led by Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha gave the order on Thursday after hearing a plea by the Anti Corruption Commission (ACC).
 
It stayed the bail granted by the High Court for two weeks and ordered the ACC to file a ‘leave to appeal’ petition within that time. 
 
The appeal court’s order means that the BNP Standing Committee member will not be released from jail, said the ACC’s lawyer Khurshid Alam Khan.
  
The ACC had filed a case against the BNP leader in February 2014, accusing him of siphoning off Tk 90 million while serving as the health minister between 2001 and 2006.
 
The money was allegedly parked at Lloyd's TSB Offshore Private Bank in London.
 
Hossain had secured an anticipatory bail in the case from the High Court but the Appellate Division scrapped that on Feb 24 last year in response to an ACC appeal.
 
He was then arrested from his home on Mar 12 and has been in prison ever since.
 
The BNP leader claims that the money in question was neither illegally earned nor laundered out of the country.
 
On Nov 20, a Dhaka court denied bail to Hossain, prompting to move the High Court on Dec 9.
 
On Aug 19 this year, the court granted him conditional bail, which the ACC challenged in the appeals court.
 
On Thursday, the top court stayed his bail for two weeks and ordered the ACC to file a ‘leave-to-appeal’ plea by that time.
 
The ACC has been also told to submit the trial court documents of the case, said the graft watchdog’s lawyer Khan.