Former BNP advisor Zahid Saddi sentenced to four months in prison by US court

Former BNP advisor Zahid F Sarder Saddi, who was sacked for fraud and then violated the terms of his release, has been sentenced to four months in prison by a US court.

The verdict was announced by the Middle District Federal Court Judge Gregory A Presnell in Orlando, Florida on Tuesday.

According to court documents, Saddi was in custody of the US Marshal pending sentence for violating the terms of his supervised release.

He was convicted and put under 'supervised release' for cheque forgery and involved in duping banks and individuals in 2014.

According to Florida court documents, he conspired and was involved in fraudulent activities that made different US firms bankrupt or suffer huge financial losses.

FBI arrested Saddi in Washington DC on May 17 following an arrest warrant issued by the Orlando Division of the Middle District Court of Florida.

District Judge Gregory A Presnell ordered to keep Saddi in jail when he was produced before the court on June 9. The date of the verdict was fixed for Jun 27.

The terms of his supervised release included one that he required him to report to the probation officer and submit a written report within the first five days of each month to confirm that he had not done something wrong anymore or left Orlando.

But Saddi had violated the term from the beginning. Leo Bogucki, the probation officer in Orlando, had sent a letter to Michael Cox, a senior probation officer in New York, to inform him that Saddi had fled to the city.

Cox then instructed Saddi to report to the probation office in 2015, but he did not follow the instruction. The court later issued the arrest warrant.

Saddi, who hails from Barisal, was arrested in the US 27 times in various cases of fraud and forgery. He was punished in all of the cases.

He made headlines in Bangladesh when it was revealed that he had circulated the fraudulent statement in the name of BNP Senior Vice-Chairman Tarique by forging the signature of six Congressmen in January 2015.

The BNP later said it had sacked Saddi and its US chapter leader Majibar Rahman Majumder for the fraudulent statement. Majibar, however, was seen in party programmes with senior leaders in the US.

The fake statement condemned the government for 'besieging' BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia and barring media from broadcasting her son Tarique’s statements.

A few Bangladeshi media and some others in the US and the UK had published reports based on the fake statements.

Two US Congressmen later reacted sharply and condemned the incident.