Report in The Daily Star, Oct 31, 2023
Two officials of Royal Canadian Mounted Police yesterday narrated before a Dhaka court how some people, including a former Bangladeshi minister received bribes from Niko, a Canadian Oil and Gas Exploration Company, to award a gas exploration and extraction deal to the company.
The witnesses were earlier summoned, asking them to appear before it yesterday in connection with the Niko graft case filed against BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia and seven others.
The two officials are Kelvin Duggan and Lloyd Schoepp, said ACC lawyer Khurshid Alam Khan.
Judge Sheikh Hafizur Rahman of the Special Judge’s Court-9 of Dhaka recorded their statements at the makeshift court set up inside the Dhaka Central Jail in Keraniganj.
The witnesses, however, did not involve Khaleda Zia with the incident. So, her lawyers declined to cross-examine the witnesses.
In his deposition, Lloyd Schoepp, member of International Anti-Corruption Unit in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, said their investigation team came to know that a report was published in June 2005 regarding a vehicle provided to AKM Mosharraf Hossain, the then state minister for energy, Niko Resources [Bangladesh] Limited.
In line with the incident, in June 2011, Niko Canada plead guilty for their involvement in providing the vehicle to the Bangladeshi minister as bribe, he said.
The Canadian court then fined Niko approximately 9.5 million Canadians dollars, he continued.
During their investigation, the investigation team found that Kashem Sharif, a former president of Niko Resources [Bangladesh] Limited, and also proprietor of Stratum Development Limited, received 2.93 million US dollars from Niko Canada as bribe.
Kelvin Duggan said Kashem Sharif was introduced to Giausuddin Al Mamun through a friend. Kashem offered one million US dollars to Mamun to help secure the joint venture agreement.
Mamun introduced Kashem to former Dhaka Club president Selim Bhuiyan and told Kashem that Selim would be the point man for the JVA, he said.
Afterwards, defence lawyers for two accused — BNP acting chairman Tarique Rahman’s close friend Mamun and Selim — completed cross-examining Schoepp.
As the lawyers could not cross-examine Duggan, the court fixed today for the next hearing.
The ACC filed the case in December 2007, accusing Khaleda and several others of abusing power to award a gas exploration and extraction deal to Canadian company Niko when she was prime minister between 2001 and 2006.
https://www.thedailystar.net/news/bangladesh/crime-justice/news/two-canadian-cops-testify-niko-graft-case-3457641
