Anti Corruption Commission and High Court approved charges against former minister Aminul Haque

The Anti-Corruption Commission on February 06, 2014 approved charge sheet against former post and telecommunications minister Aminul Haque on charge of taking bribe of US$1.708m from German engineering giant Siemens through an US expatriate.

A commission meeting approved charges against Haque and US expatriate Mizanur Rahman, a relative of the minister, for taking the bribe in exchange of getting Siemens a contract with Teletalk and mobile networking works at an international tender.

On May 19, 2016 High Court cleared the way for the lower court to resume the trial proceedings against former BNP posts and telecommunications minister Aminul Haque and one of his relatives in a money laundering case rejecting their challenge petitions. The court also lifted its 2014 order that stayed the proceedings of the case against them.

On June 7, 2012, ACC filed a case against the two with the Ramna police station under several sections of the Money Laundering Prevention Act 2002, 2009 and 2012 respectively.

According to the case statement, the minister took the bribe valued US$1.708m from Siemens to get the company a contract of US$40million at an international tender. The minister allegedly took the bribe to make Siemens the lowest bidder to get the contract and Mizanur helped the minister do this. By abusing power and exercising influence illegally, the minister did the corruption between 2001 and 2006 when he was in power.

The case was earlier proved in a court of California, USA and following the matter, ACC conducted an investigation and following evidences, filed the case against the two, reads the case statement.