Coco jailed for 6yrs, fined Tk 190mn | Bangladesh | bdnews24.com
Dhaka, June 23 (bdnews24.com)Arafat Rahman Coco, the youngest son of BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia, has been jailed for six years and fined Tk 190.41 million in a money laundering case.
Judge Mohammad Mozammel Hossain of Dhaka's Third Special Judge's Court on Thursday also pronounced the same punishment for the co-accused in the case Ismail Hossain Simon, also son of former shipping minister late Akbar Hossain.
The Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) filed the case against Coco and Simon for laundering to Singapore SGD 2,884,000 and to the United States USD 932,000.
The judge also asked the government to confiscate the laundered money and deposit it to the Bangladesh Bank after bringing it back to the country.
None of the convicts was present in the dock as the court handed down the judgement in one of around a dozen of cases filed during the military-controlled caretaker government against Khaleda and her two sons Tarique Rahman and Coco.
Pro-BNP lawyers went out on demonstrations as soon as the judge had handed down the verdict amid reinforced security on and around the court compound.
may be biased."
He also said that Coco has five more cases filed against him.
Of those, a case filed for amassing wealth illegally and concealing information in his wealth statement submitted to the ACC, an extortion case and the GATCO corruption case have been on stayed following the Supreme Court order.
However, a tax evasion case filed against Coco by the National Board of Revenue (NBR) is under hearing at the Dhaka's senior special judge's court.
The charges against the accused in the case will be framed on June 26.
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