HC clears way for Moudud’s graft trial

High Court clears way for a Dhaka court to run a land-related graft case against former minister Moudud Ahmed. Star file photo

The High Court today cleared way for a Dhaka court to run a land-related graft case against senior BNP leader and former minister Moudud Ahmed.

The court rejected a petition filed by Moudud challenging the legality of a lower court order that accepted charges against him in the lawsuit.

The bench of Justice Md Moinul Islam Chowdhury and Justice JBM Hassan passed the order saying that the lower court took the charges into cognisance in a legal and reasonable procedure.

Moudud told The Daily Star he will move an appeal with the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court against the High Court’s verdict. “The verdict is not fair. It didn’t consider my arguments.”

Anti-Corruption Commission’s lawyer Khurshid Alam Khan said that now there is no legal bar in continuing trial proceedings in a lower court against Moudud.

ACC filed the case with Gulshan police on December 17, 2013 against Moudud and his brother Monjur Ahmed accusing him of grabbing government land worth over Tk 300 crore in Gulshan.

On September 14 last year, a Dhaka court accepted the charges against the duo for trial.