Dhaka: Former Home Minister Lutfozzaman Babar of ex-prime minister Khaleda Zia's Bangladesh Nationalist Party-led government was today sentenced to 17 years rigorous imprisonment for illegally possessing firearm and other ammunition.

Judge Syed Zahed Mansur of Special Tribunal 9 pronounced the verdict when the influential former junior minister appeared before the court under heavy security escort. Army-led joint forces seized four firearms and a cache of bullets in a raid on his residence on May 28 when they arrested the ex-minister.

The judge in his verdict said the highest punishment in such a case was life in prison but Babar had been given a reduced term as he was sick and being treated at hospital.

The Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) earlier this month brought a charge against him alleging he took Taka 21 crore as bribes to save an influential murder suspect.

According to the chargesheet Babar misappropriated power and caused obstacles to the investigation of the July 2006 murder of Bashundhara Business Group director Humayun Kabir Sabbir allegedly by a son of the Group's chairman Ahmed Akbar Sobhan alias Shaha Alam.

Babar was detained in May as a major corruption suspect as part of the anti-graft campaign of the interim government. The judgement came less than a month after a special anti-graft court sentenced his predecessor former home minister in ex-prime minister Sheikh Hasina's Awami League government Mohammad Nasim to 13 years in jail.

Bangladesh's military-backed interim government has launched a massive anti-graft campaign since a state of emergency was imposed in January with nearly 200 high-profile personalities, including Zia and her archrival Sheikh Hasina of Awami League, being jailed.

Source : PTI