Bangladesh: HC upholds 10-year jail sentence of Haji Salim

Awami League lawmaker Mohammad Salim

The High Court on Tuesday upheld the 10-year jail sentence of ruling Awami League lawmaker Mohammad Salim disposing of an appeal he filed 11 years ago against a special court judgement.

The online bench of Justice Md Moinul Islam Chowdhury and Justice AKM Zahirul Huq upheld the sentence in a case filed by Anti-Corruption Commission.

The High Court’s bench started the hearing on Salim’s appeal on January 31 after a recent ACC move and concluded it on February 24.

On January 12, 2015, the Appellate Division, responding to an ACC appeal, cancelled a judgement of the High Court that on November 1, 2011 scrapped a special court verdict sentencing him to 13 years in jail for possessing wealth worth Tk 26.92 crore beyond his known source of income.

The Appellate Division in the verdict had also directed the ACC to dispose of Salim’s appeal expeditiously after holding fresh hearing on his appeal ‘on merit’.

But the ACC took no move in the last five years to dispose of Salim’s appeal to comply with the directive of the apex court.

Salim filed the appeal in 2009 against the jail term handed down by the Special Judge’s Court-7 on April 27, 2008.

New Age