Dhaka, July 13 (bdnews24.com)—The High Court has overturned a conviction against Awami League MP Mohiuddin Khan Alamgir, who was sentenced to 13 years in an illegal wealth case in 2007.
The bench of justices Syed Mohammad Dastagir and Mohammad Rais Uddin gave the ruling on an appeal against the conviction by the ruling party lawmaker.
"I am grateful to the court for this verdict as people will now not dare to file any more false cases against people," Alamgir said emerging from the court following the verdict.
In July 2007, a special judges' court convicted Alamgir on charges of amassing wealth beyond known sources of income and concealing assets in his wealth statement to the Anticorruption Commission.
He secured bailed in the case in August 2008, and the sentence was suspended in January this year.
Joint forces arrested Alamgir in Feb 2007, soon after the previous caretaker administration assumed office in January 11, 2007.
The ACC filed the case against him in March 2007 after issuing a controversial list of 55 high profile graft suspects—politicians, businessmen, civil servants and others among them—asking them to submit accounts of their family's moveable and immoveable assets within 72 hours.
Alamgir's name was among them.
Alamgir's lawyer, Rafiqul Islam, told reporters after Monday's verdict, "The ACC notice issued on February 18, 2007, to fifty-five people, including Mohiuddin Khan Alamgir, seeking assets accounts was illegal."
"The sentence that followed was based on an illegal notice and was therefore also illegal. The court rejected the penalty considering this," he said.
"The ACC will appeal against today's High Court ruling; there are grounds for an appeal," ACC lawyer Khurshid Alam Khan told bdnews24.com.
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