STAFF CORRESPONDENT

The conviction of Nobel Laureate Prof Muhammad Yunus appears to be “politically motivated”, the Clooney Foundation for Justice’s TrialWatch initiative said in a report released on Friday.

Based on its review of the proceedings, there are significant grounds for finding that the case against Prof Yunus constitutes an abuse of process, the report said, urging the Labour Appellate Tribunal to overturn the conviction for alleged violations of the country’s labour law.

The Clooney Foundation for Justice published a statement on its website in this regard the same day.

The statement says the TrialWatch’s report finds that the proceedings against Yunus appear to have been improperly motivated based on a combination of factors -- the fraught political climate in which the trial took place; the many other cases brought against Yunus; the statements made by Sheikh Hasina about him; the expedited nature of the proceedings; the apparent selective targeting of Yunus amongst many other individuals at Grameen Telecom arguably subject

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