Dhaka court jails three former AB bank officials for embezzling Tk 37.8m

A Dhaka court has sentenced three former officials of AB Bank Ltd to varying terms in prison for embezzling Tk 37.8 million.

Judge Sheikh Nazmul Alam of the Special Judge’s Court-4 delivered the verdict on Wednesday, punishing a businessman as well.

The convicts are Khondaker Mehmood Alam Nadim, owner of One Thread and Accessories Ltd and Bushra Associates, Abu Saleh Md Abdul Mazed, former senior vice president and manager of AB Bank’s Motijheel Corporate Branch, ALM Bodiuzzaman, former senior assistant vice-president and manager of the bank’s Mohakhali branch, and the branch’s former principal officer Faruk Ahmed Bhuiyan.

The court sentenced Nadim to eight years in prison and fined him Tk 20 million. He will have to serve another six months in jail if he does not pay the fines.

He was sentenced to four years in prison on another charge. But as the jail terms will be simultaneous, he will finally serve eight years. On the other charge, the businessman was fined Tk 5,000. He will have to be in jail for three more months if he does not pay.

The court handed Mazed a seven-year jail term and Tk 10 million fines. A failure to pay the fines will lead him to be in jail for one more year.

Badiuzzaman and Faruk were both sentenced to five years in jail and fined Tk 4 million each. Failing to pay the fine will result in another year of imprisonment.

The court has issued arrest warrants for the convicts as they are absconding.

Md Zainul Abedin Shibli, a director of the Anti-Corruption Commission, started the case against the four in 2015.

The court heard 11 witnesses after framing the charges in 2019