An appeal was filed with the Supreme Court yesterday challenging a High Court verdict that acquitted Awami League lawmaker Haji Md Salim of the charge of concealing information about his wealth in which he was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment by the trial court.
The Anti-Corruption Commission appealed though its lawyer Khurshid Alam Khan seeking to uphold his three-year jail sentence.
The lawmaker left for Bangkok on April 30, raising questions on the legality of his travel abroad despite being sentenced to jail for 10 years in another charge of the graft case filed by the ACC.
Citing the appeal, Khurshid told The News Times that the HC verdict did not properly consider the offence of Salim by scrapping his jail sentence.
The apex court is yet to fix any date for hearing the appeal, he added.
On March 9 last year, the HC upheld the lower court’s verdict that convicted and sentenced Salim to 10 years in the corruption case filed during the military-backed caretaker government in 2007.
It also upheld a fine of Tk 10 lakh imposed on the AL lawmaker from Dhaka-7 (Lalbagh) 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 judgement delivered in 2008 which handed three years’ imprisonment to Haji Salim for concealing information about his wealth to the ACC.
