FBI advance team in Dhaka over Niko graft case trial

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Nuruzzaman Labu and Bahauddin Imran
Published : 11:00, Dec 06, 2018 | Updated : 11:13, Dec 06, 2018

Naiko ResourcesTeams from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) are supposed to come to Bangladesh to testify in the Niko graft case.
They are supposed to testify at a special court on Dec 12. Already, a four-member advance team is in Dhaka to get an idea about security.
The team visited the court set up in the old court premises at Nazimuddin Road.
A police official said, “The main team will come on Dec 11; currently, two advance teams are here from FBI.”
At a press conference held on Nov 22, Attorney General Mahbubey Alam, said, “RCMP began investigating bribery allegation against Niko in acquiring the east Chatak gas field and found evidence that graft money was sent to Bangladesh via several other countries.”
Under mutual assistance, investigation information was sent to Bangladesh by the FBI, he added.
After submitting the reports from RCMP and FBI, we made a request to have representatives from both the agencies to come to Bangladesh to give their statements, the attorney general said.
Assistant director of Anti Corruption Commission (ACC) lodged a graft case against Khaleda Zia and four others for incurring huge losses to the state exchequer by getting into an opaque deal with Niko.

On May 5, a charge-sheet submitted against 11 persons mentioned state losses upto Tk 137.77 billion. Currently, the case is under trial in the Special Court-9.

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