In a corruption case involving the embezzlement of funds from Destiny Tree Plantation Limited, a multi-level marketing (MLM) company, a Dhaka court sentenced 19 individuals, including Managing Director Rafiqul Amin and former Army Chief and company President Lt. Gen. (Retd.) Harun-Ar-Rashid, to 12 years in prison. They were also fined Tk 4,515 crore. The verdict was delivered on Wednesday by Judge Rabiul Alam of Dhaka’s Special Judge Court-4.

Following the verdict, Rafiqul Amin was released from Dhaka Central Jail in Keraniganj after completing his sentence. He was freed at 6:31 PM, as confirmed by his lawyer Ehsanul Mahbub Samaji. However, his wife, Farah Diba, remains in prison as her sentence is yet to be fully served.

Previously, on May 15, 2022, Rafiqul Amin, Harun-Ar-Rashid, and 44 others were sentenced to varying prison terms in another embezzlement case.

The Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) filed two separate cases on July 31, 2012, accusing Destiny officials of misappropriating Tk 4,119.24 crore through the Destiny Multipurpose Cooperative Society and Destiny Tree Plantation Limited. The ACC submitted charge sheets in 2014 after a two-year investigation, implicating 46 individuals in one case and 19 in the other, with 12 names overlapping.

Of the 19 convicted in the tree plantation case, only Rafiqul Amin, Harun-Ar-Rashid, and Mohammad Hossain are in custody, while the others remain fugitives. Arrest warrants have been issued for the absconding convicts. The convicted include Destiny Chairman Mohammad Hossain, Gofranul Haque, Saidur Rahman, Mezbah Uddin, Syed Sajjad Hossain, Irfan Ahmed, Farah Diba, Jamshed Ara Chowdhury, Sheikh Tayebur Rahman, Nepal Chandra Biswas, Jasim Uddin, Zakir Hossain, SM Ahsanul Kabir, Zubair Sohel, Mosaddek Ali, Abdul Mannan, and Abul Kalam Azad.