Ex-telecom officials get 44-yr jail term over graft

CHATTOGRAM, June 22: A court in Chattogram has sentenced three former officials of the Bangladesh Telegraph and Telephone Board (BTTB) to 44 years in prison in a corruption case dating back nearly three decades.

The BTTB, the state-run telecom body, was later restructured and rebranded as Bangladesh Telecommunications Company Limited (BTCL).

Judge Md Mizanur Rahman of the Chattogram Divisional Special Tribunal delivers the verdict on Monday.

The accused were found guilty of embezzling Tk 16.6 million through fraudulent banking transactions carried out in collusion, Md Rezaul Karim Rony, public prosecutor for the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC), said.

The court convicted them on six separate counts�"under five sections of the Penal Code and Section 5(2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act 1947.
Under two counts each they received 10 years, under two counts seven years, and under the remaining two counts five years, totalling 44 years per convict.

Each convict was also fined Tk 10 million, with a further three years and six months in jail in default of payment.
The sentences will run concurrently.

The convicts are Mohammad Hossain, former upper-division assistant-cum-cashier at the divisional engineer’s (building construction) office of the BTTB Agrabad branch in Chattogram, and former divisional engineers Md Kamrul Alam and Sadikur Rahman Khan.�"bdnews24