ACC prosecutes senior JP leader Morshed, lawmaker wife for loan fraud

The Anti-Corruption Commission has filed cases against senior Jatiya Party leader Morshed Murad Ibrahim and his lawmaker wife Mahjabeen Morshed for loan scams involving Tk 2.75 billion from BASIC Bank.

On Wednesday, the graft watchdog started the cases with the Chittagong Metropolitan Police against the couple and three others, including two former top officials of the state-owned bank.

A former president of the Chittagong Chamber of Commerce and Industries, Ibrahim serves as a vice president of the HM Ershad-led Jatiya Party’s central executive body. 

Mahjabeen is an MP from the women’s reserved seats on the party’s ticket.

ACC Assistant Director Sirajul Haque, who filed the cases, said the two cases mentioned Tk 1.34 billion and Tk 1.41 billion in loan scams.

“The loans taken in 2010 and afterwards for opening letters of credit (required for import) had never been paid back. There are no mortgages against them,” he said.

The graft watchdog brought charges against Morshed of amassing Tk 1.34 billion in loans for Crystal Steel and Ship Breaking Ltd as its managing director.

The bank’s former managing director AKM Sajedur Rahman has been accused in the case over loans disbursed from its Agrabad branch in Chittagong.

In the second case, MP Mahjabeen Morshed has been accused of embezzling Tk 1.4 billion. She had taken the loans for shipping company IG Navigations Ltd as its managing director.

The two others named in the case are former BASIC top official Kazi Fakhrul Islam and one Syed Mozaffar Hossain, a director of IG Navigations.