HTML clipboardA Bogra court Monday sentenced former BNP lawmaker Helaluzzaman Talukder Lalu to 10 years in jail on charges of suppressing wealth information and accumulating illegal wealth, reports bdnews24.com.

Judge Anwar Hossain of the Special Judges' Court for Bogra also fined Lalu Tk 10 lakh and he will have to stay another one and a half years in jail in failure to pay the fine.

The court also sentenced Lalu's wife Shamsunnahar Zaman to three years in jail for assisting her husband in amassing the wealth unaccounted for.

It also fined her Tk 1 lakh and she will serve three more months in jail should she fail to pay the fine. The court ordered authorities to confiscate the couple's wealth worth over Tk 2 crore. The lawmaker from Bogra-7 constituency is now being tried in two other cases.

Lalu and his wife submitted wealth accounts worth Tk 4.50 crore to the Anticorruption Commission. But the ACC in its investigation found that they had amassed extra assets worth Tk 2.32 crore through illegal means. ACC assistant director Ashish Kumar Kundu filed the case with Bogra Sadar Police Station on Sept 9 last year.

Charges were pressed against the accused persons on Jan 24 and the trial started on Feb 24. Mozammel Haque, Lalu's elder brother, told reporters after the verdict that they would appeal to the higher court for justice.

The court earlier had sentenced the former lawmaker to one year in jail on charges of embezzlement of relief materials and five years for setting up illegal wireless tower at his home. Lalu was arrested after the imposition of the state of emergency.

Lalu's wife surrendered to the court in March and prayed for bail, but the court rejected her bail plea and sent her to jail.