Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus was found guilty Monday of violating labor laws in Bangladesh, a prosecutor told AFP, in a case his supporters say was politically motivated.
“Professor Yunus and three of his colleagues at Grameen Telecom were found guilty under labor laws and sentenced to six months in prison,” prosecutor Khurshid Alam Khan told AFP. The four suspects were immediately released on bail pending appeal, he added.
The economist, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006, and his three collaborators were accused of not having created a provident fund within the company, founded by Yunus, and of thus having violated labor law . They reject these accusations.
A hundred other accusations
Yunus faces around 100 other charges relating to alleged labor law violations and corruption allegations.
Muhammad Yunus, 83, is credited with lifting millions out of poverty through his pioneering microcredit bank, but he fell out with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who accused him of “sucking blood” poor.
The economist has been seen on the political scene as a rival to Hasina, practically guaranteed to win a fifth term in the legislative elections which are to be held on Sunday and which the opposition is boycotting.