The Dhaka Special Judge Court-4 on Sunday relieved 14 people, including interim government chief adviser Professor Muhammad Yunus and health adviser Nurjahan Begum, of a case filed on charges of embezzlement of Tk 25.22 crore from the Grameen Telecom Workers’ Welfare Fund.
The development came three days after the interim government led by Professor Yunus took the oath on Thursday after the resignation of Sheikh Hasina as prime minister amid a mass uprising led by students on August 5.
Judge Rabiul Alam of the court passed the order accepting a petition submitted by the Anti-Corruption Commission seeking withdrawal of the case, said ACC public prosecutor Mahmud Hossain Jahangir.
Earlier, a day before his oath, Yunus, also chairman of Grameen Telecom, and its directors—Ashraful Hassan, M Shahjahan, and Nurjahan Begum—were acquitted by a tribunal in a labour law violation case in which they were sentenced to six months imprisonment and fined Tk 30,000 each on January 1 by a labour court.
The 12 other accused who were relieved of charges on Sunday are Grameen Telecom managing director Nazmul Islam, directors Ashraful Hassan, Naznin Sultana, Parvin Mahmud, M Shahjahan, Nurjahan Begum, and SM Huzzatul Islam Latifee, Sramik-Karmachari Union president Kamruzzaman, general secretary Firoz Mahmud Hasan and representative Mainul Islam, Jatiya Workers Federation office secretary Kamrul Hasan, and lawyers Zafrul Hasan Sharif and Yusuf Ali.
On June 12, the trial started at Dhaka Special Judge’s Court-4 against Muhammad Yunus and 13 others in the case.
On February 1, Gulshan Anwar Prodhan, a deputy director of the ACC, submitted the charge sheet in the case filed on May 30, 2023, with its integrated district office in Dhaka-1 under the Money Laundering Act.
Yunus denied the allegations when the ACC grilled him for over an hour at its headquarters in the case in October.
