Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina yesterday said the then US secretary of state, assistant secretary and US ambassador in Dhaka had threatened several times that the funding for the Padma bridge project would be withdrawn if Dr Muhammad Yunus was removed as the Grameen Bank managing director.

Her son Sajeeb Wazed Joy also came under pressure from the US State Department to keep Dr Yunus as the MD, she added.

“The then US ambassador had always threatened me coming to my office that the funding for the Padma bridge project would be stopped if Dr Yunus was removed from the post of managing director of Grameen Bank,” she said at a reception accorded to her by the German chapter of the Awami League at Marriott Hotel in Munich.

“Hillary Clinton phoned me and exerted pressure on me in a similar way. Even, the US State Department thrice summoned my son Joy and told him that we would face trouble.”

The US State Department officials had told Joy that Hillary would not take the matter so easily, said Hasina. “Convince your mother,” she recalled what Joy had said quoting them.

“Why should such a person who received the coveted Nobel Prize be so much greedy for a simple post of a bank's managing director when the government offered him the post of adviser emeritus at the same bank?” the PM questioned.

The PM said as per the country's existing law, one can hold the post of the MD of any bank up to the age of 60 years. “But he didn't quit that post although he crossed 70 and this was very much interesting. For that he continued lobbying.”

The government did not remove Dr Yunus from his post, she added. “We tried to make him an adviser, but he did not accept it and went to a court upon advice from Dr Kamal Hossain. The court gave its verdict.”

Hasina said the editor of a newspaper “was involved in this matter as well and they both tried to float a political party during the Army-backed 1/11 regime”. “But people didn't respond to their initiative.”

Citing a Canadian court's recent verdict that dismissed the graft allegation in the Padma bridge project, she said the truth will always prevail. “Now it has been proved that there had been no corruption in the Padma bridge project.”

The premier said her government had taken the issue as a challenge and asked the World Bank to prove the allegation with proof, but it failed to do so. “Our government successfully faced the allegation of conspiracy with honesty.”

She also mentioned that those who lost honour and dignity due to the Padma bridge bribe conspiracy must file cases against the WB for its role.

About the trial of BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia, Hasina said she would be punished in the Zia Orphanage Trust graft case if the court is convinced that there were proper evidence and documents to support the allegations.

On the BNP's threat that it would not allow the government to hold the next national election if Khaleda was punished, the PM said, “They [BNP] won't allow the election to be conducted just to save a thief. What type of attitude is this?”

About the newly formed Election Commission, she said one election commissioner was picked from the list of the Awami League while another one from the list of the BNP.

“But the BNP is not happy now. They always show a negative attitude,” she added.

Leaders of AL and its associate bodies from across Europe, including Germany, France, Italy, Norway, Sweden, Spain and Finland, were present.