Thailand's ambassador in Dhaka Tasanawadee Miancharoen on Tuesday confirmed that Arafat Rahman went to Malaysia from Thailand.
'Koko is no longer in Bangkok. He is in Malaysia. You ask Malaysian ambassador,' she said briefly in response to a question at a press briefing organised at the Thai embassy on the eve
of a Thai Fair in Dhaka.
Arafat earlier went to Bangkok on parole for treatment on July 19, 2008. On June 23 this year, he was sentenced in absentia in a money laundering case.
Bangladesh high commission in Kuala Lumpur is not aware of the whereabouts of Arafat Rahman in Malaysia, reports Bdnews24.com.
'I talked to (Bangladesh) high commissioner to Malaysia and he told me that he had no knowledge about whatever was published in the media,' said Shamim Ahsan, director general of external publicity wing of the foreign ministry, on Tuesday.
The Thai ambassador talked about Arafat's whereabouts at a time when rumours are rife about his leaving Thailand to avoid 'getting extradited' after being found guilty of laundering money to Singapore.
Arafat and Ismail Hossain Simon, son of former BNP shipping minister late Akbar Hossain, were convicted of money laundering and jailed for six years and fined Tk 190.41 million each recently.
The Anti-Corruption Commission filed the case against Arafat and
Simon for laundering Singaporean dollar 2,884,000 and $ 932,000 to Singapore.
Arafat, arrested on September 3, 2007 in the GATCO corruption case, went to Bangkok on parole on July 19, 2008.
The government on August 19 last year cancelled his parole and asked him to return home by August 31 and surrender in court.
As Arafat did not follow the government instruction, he was convicted in the money-laundering case as a fugitive.
Source : New Age
