Prodip Chowdhury
bdnews24.com Correspondent
Dhaka, June 21 (bdnews24.com) -- A special judge's court formed to deal with corruption cases sentenced former state minister Amanullah Aman to 13 years imprisonment Thursday.
The BNP leader has also been fined Tk 10 lakh and will have to serve out one more year in jail in failure to pay the fine.
Aman's wife, Sabera, got three years of imprisonment. The judge also ordered authorities to confiscate their property.
Aman's jail sentence includes 10 years for earning property illegally and three years for suppressing information about assets in a wealth statement submitted to the Anticorruption Commission.
Judge Md Firoz Alam of the Special Judge's Court handed down the verdict in 25 minutes from 2.27pm.
"The allegations brought against Amanullah Aman and his wife Sabera Aman have been proved beyond doubt," the judge said in his verdict.
About Sabera, the court said Sabera was a housewife. She did not have a source of income but she owns property.
"There was evidence that she got the property from her husband," the court said before sentencing her to three years in prison.
The couple's lawyer SM Shajahan told reporters: "We'll appeal to the High Court against the verdict."
The ACC filed the case for possessing property beyond what the couple had mentioned in the wealth statement.
The sentence comes into effect from the day the accused were arrested.
Earlier, Aman was brought to court at 9.30am from Dhaka Central Jail in a prison van and Sabera, a cancer patient, was brought from Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University hospital by ambulance.
The ACC published a list of 50 politicians, businessmen, bureaucrats and CBA leaders with suspected corruption ties on Feb 18.
The ACC asked the suspects to submit statements of movable and immovable property owned by their families. Aman was on the list.
The ACC filed the case against Aman and his wife on March 6 for having property beyond the statement.
The case proceedings say Amans had illegally earned Tk 9.94 crore during 1992 to 2006.
Joint forces arrested Aman on February 4.
The chargesheet was filed with metropolitan magistrate Jagannath Das Khokan's court on April 29. Later he sent the case to Dhaka Metropolitan Senior Special Judge's Court.
The case was again transferred to the Special Judge's Court-1, set up at the Jatiya Sangsad Bhaban, to fast-track a rash of graft cases during the state of emergency.
A total of 23 witnesses testified to court in the case.
The special judge's courts have so far handed down verdicts on five corruption cases.
Aman was the vice-president of Dhaka University Central Students' Union. He headed BNP's student chapter Jatiyatabadi Chhatra Dal in 1990.
Aman was elected MP from Dhaka-3 constituency in 1991, 1996 and 2001 polls.
He served the past BNP-led government as a state minister. He faces an allegation of illegal sand-lifting in Kamrangirchar area that triggered a landslide in the area. A number of buildings collapsed in the landslide.
Aman also faces an allegation of backing land grabbers who had occupied the banks of the Buriganga river.
bdnews24.com/pc/ br/eh/my/ad/1915 hours
