DHAKA: Legal advisor to Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) Anisul Haque is going to Canada for participating in hearing in a case, of much-talked-about Padma Bridge scam, filed against two officials of engineering company SNC-Lavalin on September 9.

ACC Chairman Badiuzzaman, on Saturday, told banglanews: “Ontario Superior Court of Justice, Toronto has fixed the date of pre-trial against two officers of SNC-Lavalin on September 9. Legal advisor to ACC Anisul Haque will attend there.”

On May 19, Anisul Haque visited Canada, accompanied by ACC deputy director Jahidul Alam, also the chief investigation officer of Padma Bridge Scam.

On July 10, ACC sources said the court fixed the second date of pre-trial while Mohammad Ismail and Ramesh Shah with their respective lawyers were present there as on the first date of final hearing, on May 29, the accused were not present.

On the other hand, in in response to a query, ACC Commissioner (Investigation) Sahabuddin Chuppu told banglanews: “We are waiting for some evidences; this is why ACC legal advisor is going to Canada to collect data and observe the proceedings of the case there.”

He also said, “We will try to draw a conclusion when the legal advisor will return with whatever evidences he gets from Canada.”

Investigators found out a notebook of SNC-Lavalin official Ramesh where he wrote down the percentage of bribe to offer to various persons concerned with the much-talked Padma Bridge, a massive infrastructure project designed to link Bangladesh’s southwest with the capital city Dhaka.

Some of the information was also found from the laptop of Ismail, another official of Canadian engineering company SNC-Lavalin.

Based on the findings, Canadian police arrested these two officials and filed a case under ‘Corruption of Foreign Policy Act.’

BDST: 1948 HRS, AUG 31, 2013
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