Haji Salim to be arrested if fails to surrender

The High Court (HC) has asked ruling Awami League lawmaker Haji Mohammad Salim, who was sentenced to 10 years' imprisonment in a corruption case, to surrender before the court within 30 days of publication of the verdict.

Haji Salim will be arrested if he fails to surrender to the court within this stipulated period.

The HC bench of Justice Md Moinul Islam Chowdhury and Justice AKM Zahirul Huq pronounced the verdict on Tuesday (March 09).

Earlier, the HC commuted punishment of Dhaka-7 lawmaker Haji Mohammad Salim from 13 years of imprisonment to 10 years in the corruption case filed by Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC).

The court also fined him Tk 10 lakh, in default of which he will have to suffer one year more in jail.

The HC, however, acquitted Haji Salim of the charge of concealing information on his wealth in which he was sentenced to three years' imprisonment.

On January 12, 2015, the Appellate Division, responding to an ACC appeal, cancelled a judgement of the High Court that on November 1, 2011 scrapped a special court verdict sentencing him to 13 years in jail for acquiring wealth through illegal channels.

The Appellate Division in the verdict had also directed the ACC to dispose of Salim’s appeal expeditiously after holding fresh hearing on his appeal ‘on merit’.

But the ACC took no move in the last five years to dispose of Salim’s appeal to comply with the directive of the apex court.

Salim filed the appeal in 2009 against the jail term handed down by the Special Judge’s Court-7 on April 27, 2008.