| Submit your comments on this article | |
| Bangladesh | |
| Mujahid denied bail, asked to surrender to trial court | |
| 2008-10-20 | |
| The High Court again denied bail to wanted Jamaat secretary general and ex-Minister Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujaheed in Barapukuria coalmine corruption case yesterday and ordered him to surrender to the trial court within two weeks. However, the HC asked the police "not to arrest or harass" him within this intervening period.
Barrister Abdur Razzaq who moved the bail petition said the principal accused in the case, ex-PM Khaleda Zia, and some of her former cabinet colleagues who are co-accused are enlarged on bail. Besides, he submitted, the case proceedings have been stayed by the High Court following a quashment petition filed by BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia. Interrupting Razzaq, the court asked him whether his client is "fugitive." In response the lawyer said, "he has already surrendered before the court." Opposing the bail, Anti-Corruption Commission lawyer Khurshid Alam Khan argued that an accused remaining fugitive "defying lower-court order" cannot be freed on bail. "The accused must surrender to the trial court to seek bail as the warrant of arrest is still in place. So, there is no scope for granting him bail," he said. During the hearing, the minister of the past coalition government, who stood in the courtroom with his head bowed down, was allowed to sit in the bench on his lawyer's submission. Police took up position in the front of the central jamaat office and at the residence of Mujaheed to arrest him. The detective branch of police kept watch over the Maghbazar and Malibagh areas. But the Jamaat leader arrived in the court compound by a black jeep with tainted glass at about 3:00pm amidst tight police security. Two cars were seen escorting Mujaheed's jeep in a bid to evade the press. They said a good number of Jamaat and Islami Chhatra Shibir leaders and workers were present at the court compound. | |
| Posted by:Steve White |