Shawdesh desk:

Former Bangladesh Bank governor Salehuddin Ahmed on Tuesday termed the trial process of the Hallmark-Sonali Bank loan scam amounting to Tk 3,700 crore incomprehensible because of a lack of clues regarding the recovery of the money.

Besides, the overall delay revealed the weakness of the  trial process, said the former BB governor while commenting on the sentence given against Hallmark executives and some Sonali Bank officials, among others, by a court.

The Hallmark loan scam took place between 2010 and 2012 when SB’s Ruposhi Bangla Hotel branch lent money on falsified documents.

On Tuesday, a Dhaka Special Judge Court-1 sentenced nine people to life-term imprisonment in one of the 11 cases filed related to the scam. Eight other people were handed jail sentences for varying terms.

It would have been comprehensive had the trace of the embezzled funds been identified, said Salehuddin Ahmed.

The former BB governor was also critical of the failure of the Anti-Corruption Commission to find the mastermind behind the scam.

The scam would not have been possible without political backing, he said.

On October 7, 2013, the ACC submitted the charge sheet against 25 officials of Sonali Bank and the Hallmark Group without including any member of the then Board of Directors of the bank.

The members of the board of directors of state-owned banks are appointed by the government to protect the interests of the bank.

Many of the then members failing to check the scam of the board have already been promoted, he said without naming them.

Among the then Sonali Bank board members, Jannat Ara Henry and Shaimum Sarwar Kamal are now ruling Awami League lawmakers.

Other board members are Kashem Humayun, Satendra Chandra Bhaktha, Subhash Singha Roy, Anwar Shahid, KM Zaman Romel, Quazi Baharul Islam, Pradip Kumar Dutta, ASM Nayeem, and Shahid Ullah Mia.

The former BB governor, however, hoped that the sentence would have some positive impacts on the scam-hit banking sector.

It will send a message that not every participant in the fund embezzlement cases from the bank will go scot-free forever, he said.

He hoped that trials for other scams in the banking sector, including the state-owned BASIC Bank, would be completed on time.