Abul Hasan Chy under ACC watch

FE Team | Published: September 20, 2013 00:00:00 | Updated: February 01, 2018 00:00:00

FE Report The Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) authorities said Thursday that they have kept Abul Hasan Chowdhury, former state minister for foreign affairs, under watch as Canadian police has accused him of trying to bribe Bangladeshi officials to secure contracts for supervision and construction of the Padma Bridge. "It is good news for us as we also kept him in our list of the accused persons. He (Hasan) is now under our observation. We will include him in the charge sheet after getting relevant documents from Canada," ACC commissioner M Shahabuddin told the reporters at the commission headquarters in the city. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) has charged Abul Hasan Chowdhury along with other two people Wednesday. The RCMP announced that they have framed bribery charges under Canada's Corruption of Foreign Public Officials Act against Canadian Kevin Wallace, former senior vice president of SNC-Lavalin International Inc (SLII) and Zulfiquar Ali Bhuiyan, a Canadian citizen having business ties in Bangladesh describing them as prominent lobbyists. Two subordinate SNC-Lavalin employees, Mohammad Ismail and Ramesh Shah, are already awaiting trial in Toranto facing similar allegations that they conspired to pay bribes to help SNC-Lavalin win a supervising contract worth $50 million for the Padma Bridge Project. ACC commissioner said the Canadian investigation will be helpful for them to complete probe into the Padma Bridge corruption case. "We also included Kevin Wallace in our list of the accused and interrogated Abul Hasan Chowdhury. So, the Canadian inquiry is very much relevant with our investigation," he added. ACC Chairman M Badiuzzaman said their investigation was accurate according to the country's law and Canadian investigation will be supportive of it. "We are waiting for a long time for the conclusion of Canadian investigation as our enquiry is somehow dependent on their probe report," he said. The ACC filed a case against seven suspects in connection with the graft conspiracy on December 17 last dropping former communications minister Syed Abul Hossain and former state minister Abul Hasan Chowdhury from the accusation list. The four-member inquiry team of the ACC, led by its deputy director Abdullah Al Jahid, lodged the first information report (FIR) with Banani Police Station in the evening accusing former bridge division secretary Musharraf Hossain Bhuiyan and six others. The persons accused in the case are: Kazi M Ferdous, superintending engineer (river engineering) of Bangladesh Bridge Authority (BBA), M Riaz Ahmed Zaber, executive engineer (bridge construction and maintenance) of Roads and Highways Department, Mohammad Mustafa, deputy managing director of Engineering and Planning Consultant Limited (EPC), Mohammad Ismail, former director (International project division) of SNC Lavalin Inc, Romesh Shah, former vice president (International project division) of SNC Lavalin and Kevin Walace of the Canadian consultancy firm. Later, the ACC investigation team submitted a partial report on the Padma Bridge corruption allegation saying that the inquiry was being hampered as they did not get expected information from the Canadian authority.