Former Bangladeshi beauty queen accused of blackmailing Saudi diplomat

Dhaka: Bangladesh police on Thursday said that a former beauty queen has been detained for setting up a honey trap for a former Saudi ambassador in Dhaka in an attempt to extort USD 5 million, an allegation rejected by the woman who claimed that the diplomat wanted to marry her.

“Meghna Alam, her close associate Dewan Samir and two to three others were involved in luring foreign ambassadors into love affairs with beautiful girls,” police said in a petition filed before a Dhaka court seeking her to be shown arrested in an extortion case in the interest of fair investigation.

Police, however, did not name the Saudi diplomat or any other envoy but said she was detained for “disrupting state security” and “prejudicing the country’s financial interests”.

The 30-year-old model and former “Miss Earth”, Alam, who runs a charity as well, was initially detained without charge under the controversial Special Powers Act that allows police to detain a suspect for several months.

Her arrest, however, sparked a media outcry and concerns by rights watchdogs. Law Adviser of the interim government, Asif Nazrul, said that due process was not followed when police took her into custody on April 9.

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“We call on the authorities to either charge Meghna with an internationally recognizable crime or release her,” Amnesty International last week said in a statement.

Police spokesman Muhammad Talebur Rahman said the court granted the petition ordering her to be sent to prison. She was accused of a primary charge of alleged extortion attempt through blackmail.

The Bengali language newspaper Prothom Alo and other media outlets reported that Alam told the court that she was contacted by the diplomat, who had asked her to commence a relationship.

Public prosecutor Omar Faruq Faruqi told reporters that Alam claimed in the court that the Saudi diplomat had proposed they be locked in nuptial cord and frequently called and messaged her while she never initiated the contact.

Some two million Bangladeshi expatriate workers, the highest in a single country, work in Saudi Arabia – a major source of the South Asian nation’s remittance earnings. Interim government Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus does not want to jeopardise diplomatic ties.

Alam appeared without legal counsel during the court hearing on Thursday and defended herself on her own, urging her arrest to be nullified.

Her father, Badrul Alam, earlier told reporters that the ambassador wanted to marry her, but she refused the proposal as he already had a wife and children.

The Saudi embassy in Dhaka did not make any comment, but media reports suggested the envoy left Bangladesh as the scandal was unfolded in public.

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