Foreign Secretary Momen saysVerdict against Yunus won’t affect Bangladesh-US relations

Foreign Secretary Masud Bin Momen has said that the verdict announced against Nobel Laureate Dr Mohammad Yunus will not create any adverse impact on the relations between Bangladesh and the United States.

“A state-level relationship cannot be affected by the personal affairs of any individual. It is a legal issue and he has a scope for appeal. He also got bail. I don’t talk more about the sub-judicial matter,” he said.

The foreign secretary came up with the remarks while he was talking to reporters at his ministry office in Dhaka on Monday.

Judge Sheikh Merina Sultana of Dhaka's 3rd Labour Court pronounced the judgment around 3pm in on Monday in presence of all the four convicts.

The court fined them Tk 5,000 each, to suffer 10-day jail in default under a section of the Bangladesh Labor Act, 2006.

It also fined them Tk 25,000 each, to suffer 15-day behind bars in default.

The three other convicts are Grameen Telecom's director and former managing director Md Ashraful Hasan, members of Board of Directors Nur Jahan Begum and Md Shahjahan. The court, however, allowed the four convicts bail after pronouncement of the judgment.

Earlier, on December 24, the court fixed today for pronouncing the verdict.

Marking the judgment, Yunus came to the court around 1.40 pm with his lawyers. The judge started reading out the summary of the total 84-page judgment at 2.15 pm.

Department of Inspection for Factories and Establishments (DIFE) Inspector Arifuzzaman filed the case on September 9, 2021.

The court on June 6, 2023, framed charges in the case. A total of four prosecution witnesses including the plaintiff testified on different hearing dates.

According to the case documents, a team of the DIFE went on an inspection to the Grameen Telecom and found the violations of labour laws like not regularizing 101 staff, not establishing a welfare fund for the labourers, and not paying five percent of the company's dividends to the workers, among others.

DIFE lawyer senior advocate Khurshid Alam Khan said they are happy with the judgment, while defence counsel Barrister Abdullah Al Mamun said they did not get justice and will go to High Court against the judgment.