Published: 03:32 AM, 28 May 2019 Last Update: 02:50 PM, 28 May 2019
Ex-BD Army officer funds UK MP
Col Shahid 'involved' in terror financing
Mohammed Shahid Uddin Khan with his daughter Shehtaz
An ex-officer of Bangladesh Army, now residing in the United Kingdom, is conspiring against the country from London.
Mohammed Shahid Uddin Khan, 55, a former colonel in the army, has invested 18 million pound in the UK, according to a report published in UK's Sunday Times.
Documents, lodged in court by Bangladeshi police, say they found detonators, weapons, radical jihadist books linked to al-Qaeda and fake Bangladeshi currency in his home during a raid in January.
Detectives also allege they have uncovered 54 bank accounts held by Shahid, who lives in Wimbledon, southwest London, with his family after buying a multi-million-pound "golden visa" to the UK in 2009. He donated £20,000 to the constituency party of his MP Stephen Hammond, a health minister.
The family has purchased immigrant status in Britain under Visa Tier 1, VAF Number 511702, and invested over 18 million pounds, while the entire amount had been dirty money.
The most alarming fact is that the UK authorities did not even ask how the money was brought into that country, because the man is patronizing and funding the British politicians and political parties, said the Sunday Times report written by its Home Affairs Correspondent Tom Harper.
The report published on May 26 under the caption 'Tory donor charged with arms dealing and funding terrorism' elaborated his plots.
Diaspora members in London said it is not less likely that Shahid already had brainwashed unemployed Bangladeshis - especially students living in the UK.
They suspect Shahid's link with ex-army officials plotting against Bangladesh.
Their fear, as community leaders said, is valid as Dhaka witnessed bloody militant attacks in Gulshan café in 2016 which claimed the lives of 20 innocent people. Major Syed Ziaul Haque (Zia), another sacked Bangladeshi Army officer, is believed to draft the attack.
Zia, a graduate of the Bangladesh Military Academy, is a most wanted criminal in machete attacks on bloggers and free thinkers in Bangladesh. He went into hiding after being accused of planning a coup against Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in January 2012.
The Sunday Times report said there might have been link between Zia and Shahid -- which has long been suspected by intelligence officials.
According to the report, Shahid is a business associate of Dawood Ibrahim's D-Company, where he has invested millions of dollars.
A report of Asian Tribune newspaper, Dawood has been operating businesses in Dubai under the umbrella of Pakistani intelligence agency ISI.
According to media reports, Shahid is a funder of Islamic State (IS). He also is accused of being a part of Dawood Ibrahim's infamous D-Company in its transnational narco-trade.
Islamist militancy groups are encouraging Afghanistan-based heroin producers as well as drugs traffickers in sending consignments of drugs to the Western nations, as according to media reports, members of Taliban, Al Qaeda, Islamic State, and other militancy groups consider sending drugs to the West is a part of their sacred obligation.
They call it 'narcotic jihad'.
---UK Correspondent
