‘I am untainted,’ says Ershad, who bears corruption conviction tags

HM Ershad has claimed no charges of corruption against him had been proved, although he was convicted in some of the dozen cases after being forced to resign as president in the face of a swelling mass upsurge.

The former military dictator said made the assertion at a meeting of Jatiya Party workers from Barguna district held at his Banani office.

Ershad said he had stepped down in the interest of democracy but added that the move may have been a mistake.

“I now feel I had made a mistake by abdicating power. The members of my Cabinet and I were arrested within six days of my resignation. 
 
“We were jailed. What wrong had we committed? No one has been able to prove any charge of corruption against us.,” the Jatiya Party chairman said.

However, he had been found guilty of usurping the gifts he had received as the head of state and of being involved in dubious deals in the purchase of Japanese ships.
 
In the case concerning the gifts, Ershad had been accused of financial irregularities amounting to over Tk 10.9 million.

On Feb 3, 1992, Dhaka’s Special Judges Court found him guilty and sentenced him to three years in prison. Ershad contested the verdict in the High Court and the case made no headway since.

In the Japanese ship purchase case, he had first been sentenced to three years’ imprisonment, with the term being subsequently reduced to two years.

But since he had already been held in prison for two years after his arrest, he did not have to serve the jail term of an equivalent period.