There is a version of Tarique Rahman’s story that BNP supporters tell. In that version, every corruption case against him was fabricated. Every court that convicted him was politically compromised. Every international body that documented his crimes was either misled or acting on behalf of his enemies. The 84 cases filed against him between 2007 and 2024 were not investigations — they were persecution. His 17 years in London exile were not a fugitive’s refuge — they were principled resistance.
Then there are the cables.
On November 3, 2008, the United States Ambassador to Bangladesh, James F. Moriarty, sent a confidential message from the US Embassy in Dhaka to the Secretary of State in Washington. It was classified. It was written by a senior American diplomat — a career professional with no personal stake in Bangladeshi politics, no party affiliation in Bangladesh, no history of anti-BNP advocacy. He was simply reporting what the US Embassy had observed, investigated, and concluded.
Ambassador Moriarty requested that Tarique Rahman be banned from entering the United States of America.
The cable is now public. It was released by WikiLeaks under the reference 08DHAKA1143_a. Anyone can read it. And what it says about the man who is today the Prime Minister of Bangladesh is not an opposition allegation, not a partisan claim, and not an editorial opinion. It is the formal, on-the-record assessment of the United States government.
“A Symbol of Kleptocratic Government”
The Ambassador’s language was precise. Diplomatic cables are not written for public consumption — they are written for accuracy, because the people reading them make consequential decisions based on what they contain. Ambassador Moriarty had no reason to exaggerate. His audience was not the Bangladeshi public. His audience was the United States government.
He described Tarique Rahman as “the notorious and widely feared son of former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia.”
He wrote that Tarique was “notorious for flagrantly and frequently demanding bribes in connection with government procurement actions and appointments to political office.”
He stated that Tarique had “accumulated hundreds of millions of dollars in illicit wealth.”
He concluded that “Tarique is a symbol of kleptocratic government and violent politics in Bangladesh.”
And then he wrote the sentence that should be printed in every history book covering Bangladesh’s political crisis:
“In short, much of what is wrong in Bangladesh can be blamed on Tarique and his cronies.”
This is not from a Dhaka Tribune editorial. This is not from an Awami League party statement. This is from the United States Ambassador to Bangladesh, in a classified cable sent to the Secretary of State, requesting that Tarique Rahman be formally banned from entering the United States under Presidential Proclamation 7750 — the proclamation that allows the US to deny entry to foreign nationals who engage in public corruption.
The Ambassador’s final recommendation was unambiguous: “Embassy recommends that Tarique Rahman be found subject to Presidential Proclamation 7750 for participating in public official corruption.”
The Specific Cases — Names, Numbers, Amounts
What makes the cable significant is not only its conclusions but its specificity. Ambassador Moriarty did not write in generalities. He documented specific transactions, specific company names, specific dollar amounts. The cable reads less like a diplomatic assessment and more like a prosecutorial brief.
The Siemens Bribery Scheme. Tarique Rahman received a commission of approximately 2% on all Siemens contracts in Bangladesh — paid in US dollars. This was not an informal arrangement known only within Bangladesh. The US Department of Justice had filed a $3 million asset forfeiture case (January 8, 2009) against Singaporean bank accounts linked to the scheme. The FBI’s Asset Forfeiture unit and the DOJ were both involved. Siemens subsequently admitted and pleaded guilty to paying bribes to Tarique’s brother, Arafat Rahman “Koko,” as part of a broader $200 million money laundering investigation.
Harbin Company. A Chinese company paid $750,000 to Tarique as a bribe. The cable documents that the money was physically transported to Singapore and deposited at a Citibank account. FBI Supervisory Special Agent Debra LaPrevotte later testified in a Dhaka court — the first time an FBI agent had ever testified in Bangladesh — tracking $2.66 million laundered to Citibank Singapore (Account #158052-008/016). She found Tarique’s credit card (#4568817010064122) linked to his associate Mamun’s account. She found the $750,000 bribe from businesswoman Khadiza Islam traced to that same account. The US government, before proceeding with any of this, verified independently that the investigation was not politically motivated.
Monem Construction. The cable documents that Monem Construction paid Tarique $450,000 in bribes in exchange for government contracts.
The Kabir Murder Case. This one is particularly striking. Sanvir Sobhan — son of the chairman of the Bashundhara Group, one of Bangladesh’s largest conglomerates — was accused of killing a man named Humayun Kabir. Tarique Rahman accepted 210 million taka — approximately $3.1 million — in exchange for intervening to thwart the murder prosecution. The Ambassador’s cable documents this not as rumor but as a specific bribery transaction: a murder case was sold, and the price was $3.1 million.
The Zia Orphanage Trust. Tarique and his mother, Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, looted 20 million taka from the Zia Orphanage Trust — a charity fund established in the name of the late President Ziaur Rahman. Money designated for orphans was diverted to land purchases and BNP election campaigns.
Al Amin Construction. The cable documents straightforward extortion: Tarique threatened the owner of Al Amin Construction with shutting down the company unless they paid $150,000. They paid.
The cable goes beyond these specific cases to note that Tarique’s associates systematically extorted contractors and businessmen across multiple sectors. Reza Construction, Mir Akhter Hossain Ltd, and others are referenced. The pattern was consistent: government proximity, demands for payment, and threats for non-compliance.
What the Ambassador Said About the Broader Consequences
The cable’s most chilling passage is not about the money. It is about what the corruption enabled.
Ambassador Moriarty wrote: “His flagrant disregard for the rule of law has provided potent ground for terrorists to gain a foothold in Bangladesh.”
This is the connection that Bangladesh’s current political discourse tries hardest to obscure. Tarique’s corruption was not merely a financial crime. It rotted the institutions — the judiciary, the police, the prosecution service, the civil service — that would otherwise have been able to contain and prosecute the militant organizations that flourished under BNP-Jamaat rule. When every government contract is contingent on bribery. When every court case can be purchased. When state ministers are sheltering militant operatives because the chain of command has been corrupted from the top. When prosecution services can be neutralized for $3.1 million. The environment that produces a Bangla Bhai, a JMB, and an August 21 grenade attack does not emerge from nothing. It is cultivated through systematic institutional destruction.
The US Ambassador — in 2008, in a classified cable, writing only for his government — connected these dots explicitly.
The Broader Cable Record: Other American Diplomatic Assessments
The November 2008 cable is the most comprehensive single document, but it was not the first time American diplomats had documented their views on BNP-era governance.
Earlier cables from the US Embassy in Dhaka — also released by WikiLeaks — described the operational structure of Hawa Bhaban, the informal parallel government Tarique ran from BNP’s party headquarters. The cables use the phrase “Dark Prince” for Tarique, noting his alleged involvement in what they termed “violent politics.” American diplomats on the ground documented how government contracts were being steered through Hawa Bhaban, how business appointments were being sold, and how Tarique’s associates were embedded across the procurement apparatus of the state.
The cable record also corroborates the Transparency International assessments that Bangladesh topped the global corruption rankings for five consecutive years under BNP rule. The Ambassador notes this fact directly: “Through 2006, the nation topped Transparency International’s ranking of the world’s most corrupt governments four years in a row.” He adds a figure that is rarely cited in debates about Bangladesh’s development: “Corruption has lowered Bangladesh’s growth rate by two percent per year.”
Two percent per year. Compounded over five years of BNP rule. That is the cost, in lost economic growth, that ordinary Bangladeshis paid for Tarique Rahman’s hundreds of millions of dollars in personal enrichment.
The FBI Investigation — Unprecedented in Bangladesh’s History
The WikiLeaks cables document American concern and American recommendations. The FBI investigation went further. It produced evidence.
FBI Supervisory Special Agent Debra LaPrevotte traveled to Dhaka and testified in a Bangladeshi court on November 16, 2011. It was the first time in Bangladesh’s history that an FBI agent had testified in a local court case. She brought forensic financial evidence with her: traced wire transfers, verified bank account records, documented transaction trails.
Her testimony confirmed what the cables had stated: $2.66 million laundered through Citibank Singapore. A specific account number. A specific credit card linked to the defendant. A specific bribe payment, traced to its source, documented in the forensic record.
The US government — before committing to this extraordinary step of having an FBI agent testify in a foreign country’s court — made an independent determination that the case was not politically motivated. That determination was reached. The testimony proceeded.
The High Court subsequently overturned Tarique’s trial acquittal in 2016, sentencing him to seven years’ imprisonment and fining him 20 crore taka. The court explicitly found that he had “influenced political power to help his close friend Giasuddin Mamun to get and then launder 200 million taka.”
What Happened Next: The Great Erasure
After the student uprising of July 2024 ousted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, Bangladesh’s courts underwent a comprehensive reversal. The Supreme Court stayed Tarique’s seven-year sentence. Then, in March 2025, the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court acquitted Tarique and Mamun in the money laundering case entirely. One by one, all 84 cases against him — spanning money laundering, corruption, the grenade attack, extortion — were acquitted or quashed.
He returned to Bangladesh in late 2025. BNP won a landslide election in February 2026. On February 17, 2026, Tarique Rahman — the man Ambassador James Moriarty had called “a symbol of kleptocratic government,” the man the FBI had tracked money laundering to Citibank Singapore, the man whose specific bribery transactions were documented in a classified cable sent to the US Secretary of State — was sworn in as Prime Minister of Bangladesh.
In October 2025, in his first major media appearance after 17 years in exile, Tarique described the 1/11 caretaker government as “maliciously motivated.”
The investigators who had gathered evidence of his corruption are now being arrested.
Lieutenant General (Retd.) Masud Uddin Chowdhury — a key figure from the 2007-2009 caretaker period — was arrested on March 23, 2026, on 11 charges including murder, human trafficking, and fraud. The prosecution explicitly stated that one basis for targeting him was that he was “involved in the arrest and torture of Tarique Rahman” during the 1/11 period.
NE News (India) described these arrests as “acts of revenge and retaliation.” Human Rights Watch confirmed the targets were “key figures during the 2007-2009 military-backed government.”
The strategy is transparent: discredit 1/11 as illegitimate, and every piece of evidence gathered during that period — including the cooperation with the FBI, including the cases that led to court convictions, including the international documentation — becomes retroactively invalid. The logic is neat. The history is not.
What Cannot Be Erased
The cables exist. The WikiLeaks archive is public. The FBI testimony transcript exists. The Siemens DOJ filings exist. The Singapore court records exist. The specific names, amounts, and transaction details documented by Ambassador Moriarty on November 3, 2008, exist.
No acquittal can unwrite 08DHAKA1143_a. No Supreme Court order can recall a diplomatic cable. No act of parliament can alter the public record of what the United States government formally concluded about the man now leading Bangladesh.
The Ambassador wrote: “Tarique is a symbol of kleptocratic government and violent politics in Bangladesh.”
He wrote: “In short, much of what is wrong in Bangladesh can be blamed on Tarique and his cronies.”
He wrote: “His flagrant disregard for the rule of law has provided potent ground for terrorists to gain a foothold in Bangladesh.”
And he recommended that the United States of America bar Tarique Rahman from its territory.
That was the official position of the United States government in 2008. It was not written for public consumption. It was written because it was true, because American diplomats had done their homework, and because the evidence was solid enough to recommend action under a presidential proclamation.
Bangladeshis deserved to know this in 2008. They deserve to know it now.
Source: WikiLeaks Cable 08DHAKA1143_a — US Embassy Dhaka to Secretary of State, November 3, 2008. Full text available at: https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/08DHAKA1143_a.html
Additional sources: FBI testimony transcript, Dhaka court (November 16, 2011); Bangladesh High Court judgment overturning acquittal (July 21, 2016); US DOJ asset forfeiture filing (January 8, 2009); Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index 2001–2005.
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