Khaleda Zia'sThree-term PM of Bangla, widow of deceased dictator Ziaur Rahman, head of the Bangla Nationalist Party, an apparent magnet for corruption ...
son Tarique Rahman
...the elder son of former President of Bangladesh Ziaur Rahman Bir Uttam, and Khaleda Zia, former Prime Minister of Bangladesh. He is the Senior Vice Chairperson of Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP). His nickname is
Pino. There are allegations that Pino took a rakeoff from every foreign investment into the country while Mom was in office...
and his business partner Giasuddin Al Mamun.
This is for the first time that a US Federal Bureau of Investigation agent has testified before a court in Bangladesh. The testimony is expected to be a turning point in the case since the agent has effectively said Tarique laundered money through using Mamun's account in a Singapore bank.
Debra Laprevotte, a supervisory special agent of the FBI, narrated before a Dhaka court how she had tracked down the money allegedly laundered by BNP Senior Vice-Chairman Tarique Rahman and Mamun to a bank account in Singapore.
She said the documents recovered from the Singapore bank include detailed records of money transfers and payments made from the account. It also had photocopies of Tarique and Mamun's passports, which were submitted when the two applied for credit cards from the bank.
"The first credit card on the account was a Visa credit card in the name of Mr Mamun," she told the court, adding, "...There is another credit card in the name of Tarique Rahman."
Giasuddin Al Mamun, 47, stood in the dock at the back of the courtroom throughout the two-hour-long proceedings yesterday. Tarique Rahman remains a runaway.
After Laprevotte's testimony, the judge of Special Judge's Court-3 asked Mamun whether he would like to cross-examine Laprevotte to which Mamun shook his head to say no. His lawyer had earlier left the court protesting Laprevotte's testimony.
When the proceedings began at 11:20pm, barrister Fakhrul Islam, Mamun's lawyer, opposed Laprevotte's testifying. He submitted a petition seeking adjournment of the hearing on the ground that the witness had not been mentioned in the charge sheet and that additional witnesses could only testify after all witnesses mentioned in the charge sheet had given their depositions.