4 sentenced to 12 years prison for gold smuggling

Court Correspondent: Dhaka, Jan-12,

A court here today sentenced four people including two staff of national flag carrier Biman Bangladesh Airlines to 12-
year imprisonment each in a case lodged over recovery of more than nine kilograms of gold from Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport.

The four convicts are- Biman Flight Catering Centre (BFCC) pantry men Khandaker Ruhul Amin, Shahinur Islam, and gold smuggling gang members Iftarul Alam Sarker and Riaj alias Amjad.

Dhaka Special Tribunal-3 Judge Bilkis Akter pronounced the judgment this noon, also fined the convicts Taka 40 thousand, to suffer six-month more behind bars in default.

Of the four convicts, Ruhul Amin and Shahinur Islam were in jail and were produced before the court for the judgment, while the remaining two were on bail and appeared at the court.

After the judgment, the tribunal sent the four to jail with a conviction warrant.

Members of Dhaka Customs House recovered 9.280 kilograms of gold bars from a toilet at the airport on March 15, 2018, and detained Ruhul Amin and Shahinur Islam for their role in this connection.

According to the case documents, members of the gold smuggling gang put the gold bars inside a tissue box in the toilet of flight BG-236 from Jeddah to Dhaka. The two Biman men took the gold bars from the flight and took those
away by hiding inside their clothes. Later they hide those inside the food trolleys, only to hand those over to gold smuggling gang members.

CID filed a charge sheet against four on July 8, 2019, and the tribunal on December 13, 2020, framed charges against them.

The tribunal today came up with the judgment after examining 10 out of a total of 14 witnesses on different hearing dates.

End/Dnm/Cor/Sma/