Pay Tk 2,800cr first

Two top destiny officials will get released on bail only if they pay the government Tk 2,800 crore in six weeks by selling 35 lakh matured trees planted under the company's tree plantation project.

 The Supreme Court said this yesterday while granting conditional bail to Destiny Group Managing Director Rafiqul Amin and Destiny Multipurpose Cooperative Society Ltd Chairman Mohammad Hossain in two money laundering cases involving Tk 4,200 crore.

The money would be distributed among the investors affected by the company, the court said.

The apex court said if the two fail to manage Tk 2,800 crore by selling the trees, they would have to deposit Tk 2,500 crore in cash to the government fund for getting released on bail in the cases, the Appellate Division of the SC said in the order.

After receiving the money, the government would hand it over to the Anti-Corruption Commission chairman and the ACC chairman would then distribute the money to the affected people following verification, it said.

The jail authorities have been ordered to give all relevant facilities to Rafiqul and Hossain in prison for selling the trees through tender, ACC lawyer Khurshid Alam Khan told The Daily Star.

He said if they failed to fulfil the condition, they would not be released from jail.

The ACC lawyer said the Destiny officials submitted a statement to the SC saying that 35 lakh trees have been planted at different places across the country under its tree plantation project. Each tree could be sold for Tk 8,000 on an average and the total amount from the trees would be Tk 2,800 crore.

The SC accepted the statement of the Destiny bosses and passed the order of the conditional bail, he said.

A three-member bench of the Appellate Division headed by Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha came up with the order after hearing two petitions filed by the ACC challenging a High Court verdict that had granted Rafiqul and Hossain bail.

During yesterday's hearing, Ajmalul Hossain, counsel for Rafiqul and Hossain, told the SC that his clients were not involved in any money laundering or corruption and that they invested the money for the interest of their subscribers.

Rafiqul and Hossain were in jail for around four years in the cases, although the highest punishment in such a case filed under the money laundering prevention law of 2009 is only seven years' imprisonment, he argued.

ACC lawyer Khurshid told the SC that the trial court would examine whether Rafiqul and Hossain were involved in corruption.

The maximum punishment in a case filed under the money laundering prevention law of 2012 is 12 years' imprisonment, he added.

The ACC in 2012 filed two cases against 22 officials of Destiny Group, including Rafiqul and Hossain, with Kalabagan Police Station for laundering Tk 4,200 crore.

On July 20 this year, the HC granted the two Destiny officials bails in the cases saying they would have to submit their passports to the trial court so that they cannot leave the country before completion of the trial proceedings.

On August 24, the SC, following two petitions filed by the ACC, stayed the HC verdict.

The same day, a Dhaka court framed charges against Rafiqul, Destiny 2000 President Lt Gen (retd) Harun-ar-Rashid, who is now on bail, and 49 others in the two money laundering cases.

The ACC on May 4, 2014, pressed charges against the 51 accused in the two cases.

They were charged with misappropriating funds through Destiny tree plantation project and from Destiny Multipurpose Cooperative Society Ltd, according to the ACC.

The group's irregularities surfaced in early 2012 after the central bank found that it had been involved in illegal banking.

The officials embezzled the money in the name of paying salaries, honoraria, commissions, incentives and promotional costs. They transferred the money to their bank accounts and those of the 20 companies under the group.

At the same time, they also misappropriated Tk 2,433 crore from 17.5 lakh investors by claiming that they had sold 6.18 crore saplings under the tree plantation project. In reality, the group planted only 32 lakh trees, according to the ACC's findings.