|
Dhaka: Emergency-ruled Bangladesh has constituted a quasi-judicial body headed by a former Supreme Court judge to provide corruption suspects with an avenue to avoid imprisonment in exchange for confessions and surrender of their "illegally earned" wealth to the state.
"The president [Iajuddin Ahmad] signed yesterday [Tuesday] the order appointing former Supreme Court judge Habibur Rahman Khan as the chairman of the Truth and Accountability Commission [TAC]," secretary to the president Mohammad Sirajul Islam told Gulf News.
He said the president also appointed retired major general Manzur Rashid Khan and former comptroller and auditor general (CAG) Asif Ali as members of the three-member commission constituted as part of an anti-graft campaign spearheaded by the interim government installed in January last year with crucial military support.
Law ministry officials said the commission would initially run for five months with three members and its tenure could be extended under the Right to Voluntary Disclosure Ordinance 2008.
According to the ordinance, anybody already convicted of graft and sentenced up to two years or less, could seek leniency if he or she confesses to the crime and returns any illegal earnings within a given timeframe.
Officials said TAC would let people voluntarily admit to their corruption, deposit ill-gotten wealth to the exchequer and seek mercy. Any court or the Anti-Corruption Commission too could refer the corruption suspects to the newly constituted body for disposal of their cases.
Chief Adviser Fakhruddin Ahmad earlier said those who "crossed some sort of threshold", would not be allowed to approach the Commission.
He also said the two detained former prime ministers, Shaikh Hasina of the Awami League and her archrival Khalida Zia of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), were ineligible for a TAC hearing as they were already facing trial in courts for several corruption charges.
Criticism: Failure of justice feared
A number of politicians and legal experts, feared the commission for graft confessions proposed by a committee of legal experts could allow high profile corruption suspects to escape justice.
Under the law the commission was entrusted with the authority to summon anybody believed to be or found to be involved in corruption.
It would also have the authority to confiscate any wealth it deemed was ill-gotten.
The commission will not generally sentence anyone making a disclosure of their corruption to any prison term. But any violation of the commission's directives will constitute an offence punishable with imprisonment for a maximum five years.
Persons disclosing their corruption will be debarred from national or local elections for five years, holding of any public office or executive positions in any collective bargaining agents, associations or banks or financial institutions.
The anti-graft body is being constituted as the interim government spearheads a massive anti-graft campaign that so far witnessed the imprisonment of more than 150 high profile persons, mostly politicians, including the two former premiers.
Dozens other former ministers and lawmakers fled the country or went into hiding since the anti-graft crackdown kicked off last year involving army-led taskforces.
|
