Mother of BD disaster factory owner jailed

DHAKA: A Bangladesh court has sentenced the mother of the owner of the notorious Rana Plaza factory complex, which collapsed killing more than 1,100 people, to six years in jail for graft, a prosecutor said on Friday.

A special court in Dhaka found Morzina Begum guilty and handed down the jail term late on Thursday, anti-graft prosecutor Salauddin Eskander told AFP. Begum, who is believed to be 60, is the mother of Sohel Rana, the main accused after the April 2013 disaster.

She owns 40 percent of the nine-storey building on the outskirts of Dhaka that collapsed in one of the world’s worst industrial accidents and highlighted links between top global retailers and Bangladesh’s cheap labour garment factories.

“She was sentenced to three years in jail for submitting false and fabricated wealth statement to the anti-corruption commission and another three years for acquiring assets worth 66 million taka from unknown sources,” Eskander said. The prosecutor said the court also ordered the confiscation of her illegally acquired properties.