ACC prosecutes ex-foreign minister Hasan Mahmud over ‘illicit wealth’

The Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) has filed two cases against former foreign minister Hasan Mahmud and his wife Nuran Fatema over allegations of having wealth beyond means.

It also accuses them of involvement in suspicious transactions amounting to more than Tk 7.22 billion across 65 bank accounts.

On Sunday, ACC Chairman Abdul Momen said they found Mahmud owning Tk 11.15 million in assets to be at odds with his known sources of income in one of the cases.

Kamalesh Mandal, a deputy director of the ACC, filed the case with ACC Integrated District Office Dhaka-1.

In the case, the anti-graft watchdogs also reported Tk 397.6 million worth of dubious transactions across nine bank accounts held by Mahmud himself, organisations linked to him or managed jointly.

The graftbusters named his wife Nuran as a suspect in the other case filed by Al-Amin, another deputy director of the ACC, with ACC Integrated District Office Dhaka-1.

Nuran is accused of owning Tk 55.2 million in illicit wealth in the case. The ACC also accused her of making suspicious transactions worth Tk 6.83 billion across 56 bank accounts held in her name, under her organisations or managed jointly.

The charges in the cases were brought under Anti-Corruption Commission Act, 2004’s Section 27(1), Money Laundering Prevention Act, 2012’s Section 4(2)(3), The Prevention of Corruption Act, 1947’s Section 5(2) and Section 109 of the Penal Code.

Mahmud, the joint general secretary of the Awami League and a former MP from Chattogram-7, has been in hiding since the fall of the Sheikh Hasina government in the face of a student-led mass uprising from July-August last year.

On Jan 16, the court ordered the freezing of 81 bank accounts in the name of Mahmud, Nuran, their daughter Nafisa Jumyina Mahmud and six companies they own.