AL MP Haji Salim lands in jail

A Dhaka court on Sunday sent the ruling Awami League lawmaker for Dhaka-7, Haji Mohammad Salim, to jail rejecting his bail petition in a case in which he was convicted of graft.

Salim was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment in the graft case filed in 2008.

Judge Shahidul Islam of Dhaka Special Judge’s Court-7 passed the order after Salim surrendered before the court at 3:22pm and sought bail in the case, said Syed Ahmed Raza, one of Salim’s counsels.

The court, however, accepted two other petitions of the lawmaker — one for providing him with proper treatment and the other to provide him with first-class division facilities in jail.

Salim surrendered before the trial court at the order of the High Court.

The High Court on February 10 released the full text of its verdict after rehearing Salim’s appeal against the trial court’s verdict. The High Court directed Salim to surrender before the trial court in 30 days.

The HC on March 9, 2021, upheld a lower court’s verdict that sentenced Salim to 10 years in prison in a corruption case filed by the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) during the military-backed caretaker government in 2007.

It also upheld a fine of Tk 10 lakh imposed on the lawmaker from Dhaka-7 for amassing wealth worth Tk 14.65 crore beyond known sources of his income. The HC, however, scrapped another part of the lower court’s verdict delivered in 2008 which handed down three years imprisonment for Salim on charges of concealing information about his wealth.

On April 27, 2008, Dhaka Special Judge’s Court-7 sentenced Haji Salim to a total of 13 years imprisonment over two separate charges brought in the case.

The court also sentenced his wife Gulshan Ara to three years imprisonment for abetting her husband’s crime and keeping the ill-gotten wealth in her possession. Challenging the verdict, Haji Salim filed an appeal with the HC on October 25, 2009, against the trial court verdict. Following the appeal, the HC on January 2, 2011, acquitted Haji Salim of the graft case.

But, the Anti-Corruption Commission then filed an appeal against the HC verdict with the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court. The Appellate Division on January 12, 2015, scrapped the HC verdict and directed the HC to hold a rehearing of Haji Salim’s appeal and to dispose of the appeal again.

Haji Salim’s wife Gulshan Ara had also submitted an appeal in 2013 against the lower court verdict but her appeal was cancelled by the HC following her death in 2020.