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DHAKA: Nobel peace laureate Muhammad Yunus was convicted on Monday of violating Bangladesh’s labour laws in a case decried by his supporters as politically motivated.
Yunus, 83, is credited with lifting millions out of poverty with his pioneering microfinance bank but has earned the enmity of longtime Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who has accused him of “sucking blood” from the poor.
Hasina has made several scathing verbal attacks against the internationally respected 2006 Nobel Peace Prize winner, who was once seen as a political rival.
Yunus and three colleagues from Grameen Telecom, one of the firms he founded, were accused of violating labour laws when they failed to create a workers’ welfare fund in the company.
A labour court in the capital Dhaka convicted and sentenced them to “six months’ simple imprisonment”, lead prosecutor Khurshid Alam Khan said, adding that all four were immediately granted bail pending appeals.
All four deny the charges. Dozens of people staged a small rally in support of Yunus outside the court.
“I have been punished for a crime that I haven’t committed,” Yunus told reporters after the hearing. “If you want to call it justice, you can.”
Yunus is facing more than 100 other charges over labour law violations and alleged graft.
He told reporters after one of the hearings last month that he had not profited from any of the more than 50 social business firms he had set up in Bangladesh.
“They were not for my personal benefit,” Yunus said at the time.