Hearing on charge framing against Mahmudur on Sept 22

18 May 2010, 18:00 PM

Court Correspondent

A Dhaka court yesterday fixed September 22 for hearing on charge framing against acting editor of the daily Amar Desh Mahmudur Rahman and two others in a defamation case filed by energy adviser to the prime ministerTowfiq-e-Elahi Chowdhury. First Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Habibur Rahman passed the order after Towfiq's lawyers submitted a petition seeking adjournment of the hearing. The other accused are publisher of the daily Alhaj Mohammad Hasmat Ali and reporter M Abdullah. On January 19 this year, Towfiq filed the case against them for publishing a news item linking him and prime minister's son Sajeeb Wazed Joy in the December 17 issue of the daily newspaper. The report said Towfiq and Joy took a five-million-dollar bribe from American oil company Chevron promising them to award an oil exploration order, the complainant said. CASE AGAINST HT IMAM Another Dhaka court will give an order on June 2 whether the charges of making defamatory statements against Mahmudur Rahman by prime minister's adviser HT Imam would be taken into cognizance. Metropolitan Magistrate Mehedi Hassan Talukder yesterday set date after hearing both the sides on the issue. The case was filed on December 28 in 2008. At the press conference, HT Imam said, "We have come to know that Mahmudur Rahman and a deputy secretary of Bangladesh Government (BG) Press who also acted as the personal secretary to Jamaat secretary Ali Ahsan Muhammad Mojahid and two former IGPs have trained up some 100 workers of BNP-Jamaat on making fake ballot papers and techniques of vote rigging."