The High Court on Wednesday asked 17 former and incumbent officials of Biman Bangladesh Airlines to surrender before it within next three weeks in a case over embezzlement of around Tk 1100 crore in the name of taking two  Egyptian aircraft on lease.

An HC bench of Justice Mustafa Zaman Islam and Justice Md Aminul Islam passed the order after hearing an interim bail petition.

Advocate Khurshid Alam Khan stood for Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) in the court while counsel ARM Hasanuzzaman represented the accused.

The accused are Biman Flight Operations Director Captain Ishrat Ahmed, Deputy Engineer Md Shafiqul Alam Siddique, Director General Md Abdur Rahman Fukoy, former chief Engineers Shaheed Uddin Mohammad Hanifi and Devesh Chowdhury, Engineer Md Sadekur Rahman and DGM Kamal Uddin Ahmed, among others.  

All the 17accused appeared before the court with bail petitions while they were asked to surrender before it after rejecting the bail prayer. ACC Deputy Director Jesmin Akter filed the case accusing the former and incumbent officers of corruption on February 6 this year.

According to the case statement, the accused in collaboration with each other misappropriated Tk 1000.61 crore in the name of taking two Egyptian aircraft on lease through misuse of their power.

Engines of two Boeing-777 and-200 aircrafts of ER model went out of order one year after those were brought for five years on lease in 2014.

Another engine from Egypt was also flown to operate the previous engines but it also went out of order around one and a half years of its arrival.

The government had to incur a Tk 1100 crore loss over five years.

These irregularities were found in an investigation carried out by the parliamentary standing committee on civil aviation and tourism ministry.

Later, the committee asked the ACC to conduct more investigation into the irregularities.

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