BNP acting chairperson Tarique Rahman will face all the cases filed against him through due legal process, said his lawyer Barrister Kayser Kamal.
In a briefing on the Supreme Court premises on Sunday, Barrister Kayser, also Legal Affairs Secretary of BNP, said, "The cases in which Tarique Rahman had been convicted are filed on false allegations, politically motivated, and baseless. However, he (Tarique Rahman) is respectful to the law and will face all the cases against him through due process of law."
The lawyer further said, "Tarique Rahman led BNP during the fascist regime in last 15 years. So the people of the country hope that he will come back very soon. But when he will come is his personal decision."
Tarique Rahman was arrested in an anti-corruption crackdown in March 2007 and was released on bail on September 3 the following year.
He left for the UK on September 11 for treatment and has been staying in London since then.
BNP or lawyers do not have any statistics on how many cases have been filed against Tarique Rahman. But the BNP leader was convicted in six cases during the Awami League regime.
In a money laundering case, a trial court acquitted him in 2013, but the High Court later gave him seven years' imprisonment in 2016.
In the Zia Charitable Trust case, he was sentenced to five years' imprisonment in 2018, and the case is now pending with the HC.
In the Zia Orphanage Trust Case, Tarique was sentenced to five years' imprisonment in 2018, and the case is also pending with the HC.
He was sentenced to prison for life in 2018 over a plot to assassinate Sheikh Hasina in 2004 when she was in the opposition.
Barrister Kayser Kamal said, "Tarique Rahman was not an FIR named accused in the case. And multiple charge sheets were submitted during the Army-backed caretaker government but his name did not appear then.
Subsequently when Sheikh Hasina took power in 2009 a supplementary charge-sheet was submitted by a retired police official, Abdul Kahar Akand, who was an Awami League lawmaker in the last parliament. Then Tarique Rahman was convicted for life. The High Court is yet to hold hearing in the case."
Last year (2023), he was sentenced to nine years' imprisonment in a case filed by the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) in 2007 on charge of accumulating illegal wealth.
A Narail court sentenced him to two years in jail in a defamation case filed by a local Awami League lawyer.
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