Detained Bangladeshi independent lawmaker Mohammad Shahid Islam in Kuwait was being interrogated at the Criminal Investigation Department there for the second day on Monday after his employees filed at least 15 complaints with the department.
The expatriate businessman-turned-politician was accused of realising extra fees from 15 of his former and current employees to renew their residence passes, a senior official of Shahid’s Marafie Kuwaitia Company in Kuwait and a close aid of the lawmaker in Dhaka said on Monday.
They said that the employees filed the complaints with the CID before Eid-ul-Fitr and the department picked up the company’s chief executive officer and managing director Shahid Islam form his Mushrif residential area house in Kuwait on Saturday night.
They said that the CID crosschecked the statements of seven plaintiffs on Sunday and it was scheduled to examine the statements of the rest eight on Monday.
A Marafie Kuwaitia Company official said that the next steps would be clear after the CID produced him to the court concerned.
He said that that they were aware of the complaints after the CID detained Shahid Islam.
On Sunday, foreign minister AK Abdul Momen told New Age that the Bangladesh ambassador in Kuwait informed him that the lawmaker was picked up in a case filed over his business matters in Kuwait.
The foreign minister said that the independent lawmaker from Lakshmipur-2 constituency was picked up from his Kuwait home.
On February 26, the Anti-Corruption Commission in Bangladesh initiated an inquiry against lawmaker and NRB Commercial Bank director Shahid Islam on charge of his alleged involvement in theaccumulation of illegal wealth through money laundering.
The inquiry against the Kuwait-based businessman was initiated after a 174-page complaint was filed with the commission, said ACC director for public relations Pranab Kumar Bhattacharjee.
Arab Times in Kuwait reported on February 13 that a Bangladesh parliamentarian ‘is believed to be involved in visa trade in Kuwait’ and he was one of the members of the three-man gang sought by the security authorities in Kuwait.
