List of 80 high-profile corruption suspects released in B'desh

Dhaka, Sep 28 (UNI) The caretaker government in Bangladesh has released a new list of 80 high-profile corruption suspects, including politicians, businessmen and former bureaucrats, as part of the anti-corruption drive.

Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) Secretary Mokhles ur Rahman said that the anti-graft body has not yet received any such list officially.

''No such list has reached our hands but we have heard that journalists have got such a list.

However, he added that authorities concerned told him about handover of a new list by Sunday.

''The list will come to us officially if it is authentic, and on receipt we will initiate routine work including serving notices, asking the graft suspects to submit their wealth statements,'' the Daily Star quoted him.

According to rules, after receiving the ACC notice a graft suspect gets seven working days to submit statement about his assets. The commission can initiate legal action if it is not submitted within the stipulated time.

With the latest list of 80 persons, the number of alleged high-profile corruption suspects rose to 222. Earlier, lists of 142 suspects were published in five phases. A few of them have already been tried and jailed by special anti-corruption courts.

UNI