Bangladesh court upholds 10-year jail sentence to Haji Selim in wealth case

Awami League MP Haji Mohammad Selim faces an order to surrender to the lower court after the High Court upheld a 10-year jail sentence given in a wealth case filed one and a half decades ago.

In another decision on Tuesday, the High Court cleared him of the charges in a case that convicted him of hiding information about his wealth.

For that, he had been sentenced to three years in jail by a judge. The High Court said the Anti-Corruption Commission failed to prove these charges against Selim.

Selim has been ordered to surrender in the Special Judges Court-7 within 30 days after the receipt of a copy of the latest court verdict. His bail will be cancelled and he will face an arrest warrant if he refuses to surrender.

The High Court also upheld Tk 1 million fines to Selim. Failure to pay the fines will lead Selim to be in jail for one more year.

The ruling orders the authorities to confiscate his assets earned from unknown sources.

The court dismissed the appeal of Haji Selim’s wife Gulshan Ara against her conviction by the lower court in the case as she died while the plea was being heard.

The virtual panel of Justice Md Moinul Haque Chowdhury and Justice AKM Zahirul Hoque delivered the ruling after accepting parts of Haji Selim’s appeal against the jail sentence.

Abdul Baset Majumder and Sayeed Ahmed Raja represented Haji Selim and his wife while Md Khurshid Alam Khan argued for the ACC. Deputy Attorney General Md Asaduzzaman Monir and Assistant Attorney General Tamanna Ferdous stood for the state.

Raja said they would appeal against the High Court verdict.

The lower court verdict delivered the verdict on May 27, 2008, just five days after the ACC pressed the formal charges against Selim, which the lawyer said was “unusual” but the High Court “did not consider” the matter.