Former Chief Whip and former Member of Parliament of BNP. Zainul Abdin Farooq acquitted in a corruption case. Judge SM Ziaur Rahman of the Divisional Special Judge Court of Dhaka gave this order of acquittal on Monday.
Zainul was acquitted of a 24-year-old case filed for not submitting the assets statement within the stipulated time as per the summons of the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC).
In the verdict, the judge said that the state party has completely failed to prove the charges brought against the BNP leader. For this reason he was acquitted of the charges. Apart from this, the judgment also mentioned that the ACC did not properly interrogate the accused and issue the notice.
Earlier, the state and the accused finished presenting their arguments and the judge took the testimony of three witnesses including the complainant in the case.
On 26 May 1999, the Anti-Corruption Bureau (now defunct) asked Farooq to submit his asset declaration within 45 days from the date of receipt of the notice. He received the notice on July 9 of that year but did not give the information within 45 days.
In this regard, on January 19, 2000, Anti-Corruption Bureau filed a case against Farooq at Mirpur Model Police Station.
Later he was granted bail by the Dhaka Metropolitan Senior Special Judge Court on June 26, 2001 but did not appear in the court. On January 11, 2022, the court issued an arrest warrant against him. After the arrest warrant, Farooq appeared in the court and sought bail in the case.
When Zainul Abedin Farooq applied to the High Court to cancel the proceedings of this case, the High Court suspended the proceedings of the case. After the proceedings of the case were suspended for a long time, he ruled that the trial of the corruption case against Farooq will continue on January 2, 2023. After that, the proceedings of the case resumed in the judge's court.
