A Dhaka court has ordered to freeze nine bank accounts of online news portal bdnews24.com and 13 bank accounts of its editor-in-chief Towfiq Imrose Khalidi on charges of amassing wealth beyond known sources of income. Judge KM Emrul Kayesh of senior special judges’ court of Dhaka on December 1 gave the order, after Anti-Corruption Commission submitted an application to this end.
Mahmud Hossain Jahangir, public prosecutor of the ACC, confirmed it. He also said that the court orders came as ACC Deputy Director Gulshan Anwar Pradhan submitted an application alleging that Khalidi amassed wealth beyond known sources of income. In the application, Pradhan said Khalidi transferred huge sums of money to bank accounts in his own name and bdnews24. After hearing, the court ordered to freeze nine fixed deposit (FDR) accounts of bdnews24.com and 13 FDR accounts in Khalidi’s name.
As per the court order, the court has ordered to freeze all the transaction a total of Tk 42 crore of those 22 accounts in different banks. Of them, transactions of Tk 18 crore has been stopped by freezing nine accounts in the name of bdnews24.com in two banks while transaction of Tk 24 crore has been stopped by freezing 13 accounts in the name of Khalidi in three banks.
The ACC in its prayer mentioned that the offences committed by Khalidi and bdnews24.com are related to crimes like money laundering. It should be mentioned that investigation by the ACC into the corruption allegedly committed by Khalidi and his organisation is on. He has been summoned by the ACC to clarify himself. He already was interrogated once by the ACC investigators on November 26 at the ACC headquarters.
The ACC also interrogated Reaz Islam, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of an asset management company named LR Global on November 4.
