ACC sues AL leader, ex-minister Sajeda

Dhaka, July 10 (bdnews24.com) – The Anticorruption Commission has filed a case against Awami League presidium member and former minister Syeda Sajeda Chowdhury, on charges of illegal earnings and concealing wealth-related information. ACC assistant director Mozahar Ali Sarder filed the case with Ramna police Thursday afternoon. ACC director general (administration) Col Hanif Iqbal told reporters earlier in the day: "In the wealth statement Sajeda Chowdhury submitted to the commission, she hid information about Tk 13.75 lakh, which she earned through illegal means." The case also alleges that Sajeda spent money on private building works in her village home and on buying a plot in Dhaka's upmarket Banani residential area that were not mentioned in her wealth statement. "The commission detected these expenditures in its investigation," said Iqbal. The ACC sent a wealth statement notice to Sajeda Chowdhury on Nov 15 last year. She submitted an account of her assets—totalling Tk 53.41 lakh and 100 tolas of gold ornaments—to the commission on Feb 11. The ACC also approved separate cases to be filed against former AL state minister AKM Jahangir Hossain, Daily Samokal publisher AK Azad and Khaleda Zia's former assistant private secretary Abdul Matin, Iqbal told reporters Thursday.