Golden Monir acquitted: Court says, trumped-up charge, his arms legal

The court has acquitted Monir Hossain alias Golen Monir of the charges in the arms case.

Monir and his wife had licensed arms, the court quoted a police official as saying.

The court in its verdict said as there were two arms in his and his wife's names, it is not normal or believable that he would keep another illegal firearm at home.

The court also said the prosecutors have utterly failed to prove that arms were recovered from under a mattress in the bedroom of Monir Hossain's house at Badda at around 6:30am on 20 November 2020.

Dhaka metropolitan sessions court judge Md Asaduzzaman recently delivered the verdict in an arms case filed by the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB).

Speaking to Prothom Alo, Dhaka metropolitan sessions judge court additional prosecutor Taposh Kumar Pal said the court has acquitted Monir Hossain of the case filed over the arms case.

Receiving the full verdict and analysing it, an appeal will be filed against the verdict.

Monir's lawyer Dabir Uddin, speaking to Prothom Alo, said, "The verdict has proved that an arms case was filed to harass him."
RAB arrested Monir from his house at Merul Badda in the capital on 20 November 2020.

A foreign pistol, 4 litres of liquor, 32 fake seals, foreign currency worth over Tk 800,000, around 600 tolas of gold, and cash of Tk 19 million were recovered from his possession. RAB filed three separate cases including arms act with the Badda police station.

According to the court, RAB in the case said they conducted the operation at Monir Hossain's house at Badda at around 6:00am on 22 November 2020. They recovered a magazine-loaded pistol from under the mattress in the bedroom on the 3rd floor. The recovered arms had no licence. The police interrogated Monir in remand for seven days and submitted a charge sheet to the court. After framing charges, the state produced 16 witnesses before the court.

The court said there were two public witnesses among 16. Others were members of the police. Public witness Emad Uddin told the court that RAB members took him while he was on duty at a pharmacy at around 10:30pm on 20 November 2020. Later he was kept seated throughout the night in a room of Monir's house. The RAB members made him sign a blank page at midnight. On the following day, he was released at around 10:30am.

Another public witness Mobarak Hossain said RAB members took him to Monir's house at around 10:30. They took his signature on a blank page.
According to the verdict, the allegations of recovering arms and bullets in presence of public witness Emdad and Mobarak are not credible. Analysing the information of witnesses of the state, it is proved that the operation was conducted at Monir's house at around 10:30pm, not at around 6:30am. The operation was conducted on special purpose. The case of the state is a trumped-up one. The depositions other witnesses have given regarding recovering arms from the bed room of Monir is in no way credible.

The verdict said that there is no mention of any forensic test of arms recovered from Monir’s house. Also, the case was filed 19 hours and 15 minutes later. The explanation for the delay in filing the case was not satisfactory either.

The case’s witness SI Manik Chandra Roy told the court that Monir Hossain was arrested from the first floor of his office. Depositions of witness SI Jamal Hossan and assistant SI Nazim Uddin contradicted Manik Chandra as they said Monir was arrested from the second floor.

The verdict further mentioned that the investigating officer inspector Abdul Malek told the court that he came to know during the investigation that Monir and his wife had two licensed weapons. This statement proved that Abdul Malek and wife had two legal weapons. So it is not credible that they had an illegal weapon in their possessions despite having two legal weapons.

According to the money laundering case documents, Tk 7.91 billion was deposited in 129 banks in the name of Golden Monir and organisations linked with him. Monir converted a part of this income into movable and immovable properties by investing businesses with the connivance of organised crime gang members.

After Monir’s arrest, the RAB said Monir was a salesman of a clothing store in the city's Gawsia Market in the 1990s. He later joined a crockery shop in Mouchak Market. They then got involved with ‘luggage party’ and gold smugglers based on the airport and earned the epithet of ‘Golden Monir’. He would initially smuggle in and out clothing, cosmetics, electronic devices, computers by evading tax and later started smuggling gold by air.

According to CID’s information, Golden Monir bought 30 plots including 20 government plots, 15 houses, a housing project and two car showrooms in his, wife’s and son’s name by ill-gotten money. However, in the statement of assets filed with the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) in 2009, Monir stated that his immovable assets amount to Tk 30 million movable assets is 6.7 million.

*This article, originally published in Prothom Alo print and online editions, has been rewritten in English by Rabiul Islam