The High Court has granted two months’ ad-interim bail to suspended Deputy Inspector General (DIG) of police Mizanur Rahman who was sentenced in a bribery case filed by the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC).
The single HC bench of Justice Md Mostafizur Rahman granted the bail on Wednesday (April 13) following a bail plea pending the hearing of his appeal he filed challenging his sentence given by a Dhaka court.
The HC bench also accepted the appeal of suspended ACC director Khandaker Enamul Basir, who was sentenced to eight years in prison on a charge of taking bribes from suspended DIG Mizan.
Besides, the court stayed Enamul Basir’s fine of Tk 60 lakh. The HC bench also summoned documents from the trial court concerned.
Earlier on April 4, Mizan appealed to the High Court seeking acquittal in the bribery case. Later, on April 6, the HC accepted for hearing the appeal. Barrister Mahbub Shafiq stood for Mizan in the court while Advocate Khurshid Alam Khan represented the ACC.
Barrister Mahbub Shafiq said that Mizan won’t be released from the jail as he is detained also in another case filed by the ACC for allegedly amassing a wealth statement. He, however, said that Mizan had already been in jail for 32 months out of the 36 months jail terms he received in the bribery case.
On February 23 this year, Special Court-4 of Dhaka delivered the judgment in the bribery case.
The court sentenced ACC director Khandaker Enamul Basir to eight years imprisonment with Tk 80 lakh fine and Mizan to three years.
Enamul Basir was sentenced to three years jail term for bribery and five years jail term under money laundering law, but he will have to spend five years in prison as the two punishments will be served simultaneously.
The court awarded three years’ imprisonment to DIG Mizan for giving the amount to Enamul Basir as a bribe. The time that Mizan and Basir have already spent in jail would be deducted from their sentence.
DIG Mizan was an additional commissioner of Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP). He was withdrawn on January 9 in 2019 following the allegation of threatening a female news presenter on a private television channel.
He had also reportedly married a woman forcibly and tortured her. Mizan allegedly abducted the 25-year-old woman in July 2017 and then forcibly married her.
He had also implicated her in a false case whereby she was arrested and remained in jail for three weeks.
On June 24 in 2019, ACC director Monjur Morshed filed the case against DIG Mizan, his wife Sohelia Anar Ratna, nephew sub-inspector Mahmudul Hasan and younger brother Mahbubur Rahman.
According to the case statement, the ACC found that Mizan concealed information about wealth worth Tk 3.7 crore in his wealth statement. The then director of ACC Enamul Basir was made the investigation officer in the case.
During the investigation, DIG Mizanur Rahman accused Enamul Basir of claiming Tk 40 lakh as a bribe for acquitting him from the charges.
Following the allegation, another ACC director Monjur Morshed was made the investigation officer in the case, withdrawing Enamul Basir.
A three-member probe body was formed led by ACC director Sheikh Mohammad Fanafillah to look into the allegation of bribery.
On July 16 in 2019, Sheikh Mohammad Fanafillah filed the case over the bribery scandal against Mizanur Rahman and Enamul Basir.
On April 16 in 2020, the Dhaka court indicted the two and directed the official beginning of the trial in this case.
