Court Correspondent

The Supreme Court (SC) today (Dec 10) stayed seven-year jail sentence of BNP Acting Chairman Tarique Rahman and businessman Gias Uddin Al Mamun in a case lodged over money laundering.

A four-member apex court bench, headed by Chief Justice Syed Refaat Ahmed, passed the order granting a leave to appeal petition filed against the High Court judgment.

According to Tarique Rahman's counsel Barrister Kaiser Kamal, the High Court convicted and sentenced him, whereas the lower court concerned acquitted him in the case.

"We had filed the leave to appeal petition against the High Court judgment. Today the apex court granted that plea, staying the High Court judgment as well. The court asked both the parties to submit the summaries of our plea by December 31," he said.

The High Court on July 21, 2016, sentenced Tarique Rahman to seven-year imprisonment and fined him Taka 20 crore, scraping his sentence of acquittal in a money laundering case.

A High Court division bench comprising Justice M Enayetur Rahim and Justice Amir Hossain passed the order, repealing a lower court order that had acquitted the BNP leader in the case.

The court, however, upheld the lower court sentence of seven-year imprisonment for Gias Uddin Al Mamun while commuting his fine of Taka 40 crore to Taka 20 crore.

According to the case document, ACC filed the case against Tarique and Mamun for taking more than Taka 20 crore as bribe and laundered it abroad.

Dhaka Third Special Judge Md Motahar Hossain on November 17, 2013, acquitted Tarique from the charges and sentenced Mamun to seven-year imprisonment and fined him Taka 40 crore.

The ACC filed an appeal against Tarique's acquittal on December 5, 2013. Mamun too filed an appeal against the lower court sentence.