Dhaka: Bangladesh's Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) has approved the chargesheet against detained former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, her youngest son and eight cabinet colleagues in a scam case to be tried under tough emergency power rules, officials said here today.

"The commission approved the submission of the chargesheet pressing charges against a total of 24 people for awarding contract of container handling to an incompetent and unfit firm," ACC spokesman Colonel Hanif Iqbal told newsmen late yesterday.

Iqbal said according to the chargesheet Global Agro Trade Company (GATCO) allegedly bribed to handle containers at the Inland Container Depot in Dhaka and at southeastern Chittagong port, incurring a loss of more than Taka 14.56 crore (Rs 8.75 crore approx) to the state exchequer.

"The late shipping minister Akbar Hossain's son Ismail Hossain Simon and Arafat Rahman took Taka 21,999,736 (Rs 1.33 crore approx) in bribe from GATCO for the award of the contact," he said.

Iqbal said ACC would "very soon" lodge the chargesheet with a court while legal experts said if convicted, the accused might face the highest life imprisonment while the emergency power rules demands the trial to be accomplished in 120 days.

The convicts, however, will have scopes for appeal before the High Court. This was the second chargesheet filed against the ex-premier in a week since her arrest along with her younger son Arafat Rahman Koko on September 2 last year as part of a massive anti-graft campaign being spearheaded by the interim government installed with crucial military support on January 12,2007 following the promulgation of state of emergency.

Source : PTI