The case of Qazi Faruque Ahmed

It is thus that I think all fair-minded people would be shocked to learn of the extent to which the government has gone in its persecution of Qazi Faruque Ahmed, the president of Proshika, who has been held in custody for fifty-six days and counting since he was arrested in May on a host of charges relating to allegations of financial impropriety.

Please bear in mind that Mr. Ahmed has been convicted of no crime, but that his applications for bail have repeatedly been denied in the lower courts, and he has been languishing in custody pending trial. In addition, the authorities have made repeated efforts to take him into police remand for "questioning."

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The idea behind the concept of bail is a simple one. Once an individual has been charged with a crime, he or she is typically released from custody pending trial on the basis of the understanding -- fundamental to our jurisprudence -- that a person should be considered innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.

However, to ensure that the accused does not attempt to flee the country or otherwise go to ground pending trial, bail is set by the court, so that if the accused does attempt to elude justice, he or she will forfeit the amount of the bond that has been submitted.

The court must find a balance between the rights of the accused who has not been convicted and the practical consideration that some defendants might choose to become fugitives from the law rather than submit themselves to a trial. It is for this reason that capital offenses or those punishable by life imprisonment are considered non-bailable offenses under the criminal procedure code.

Most basic offences are considered bailable, and there is an intermediate category of offences for which bail is not mandatory, but may be granted at the discretion of the judge. In these cases, the judge makes the determination based on factors such as whether the accused is a flight risk, whether he or she is likely to tamper with evidence or interfere with witnesses, the reputation of the individual in the community, the state of his or her health, etc.

The repeated refusal of bail to Mr. Ahmed is a story that bears telling because it demonstrates quite clearly that the government is abusing the process in order to punish him and to keep him behind bars for as long as possible.

Mr. Ahmed was first arrested on May 22 and held in Pallabi police station overnight with no access to either a lawyer or his family. He was produced in court the next day where he was refused bail and ordered remanded into police custody. Fortunately, Mr. Ahmed was able to avoid being put in a joint interrogation cell, where, according to a senior government official, he could be "taught a lesson."

Once he was in custody in Dhaka Central Jail, Mr. Ahmed was subsequently shown arrested in eight more cases which meant that he would have to petition for and be granted bail in each of the nine cases that he was charged with before he could be released.

Mr. Ahmed duly applied for bail, but his application was rejected out of hand in the lower courts even though the offences he was being charged with -- for the most part allegations of financial impropriety -- were eminently bailable. He was forced to appeal all the way to the High Court for bail, which was finally granted in all nine cases on June 13, by which time he had already been incarcerated for twenty days.

This is where it gets interesting. The day after Mr. Ahmed received bail in the nine cases, he was "shown arrested" in two more cases. Let me explain. Being shown arrested meant that he would have to be granted bail all over again before he could be released.

This time he received bail in one case -- though only after two of the country's top lawyers appeared for him in the lower court, a remarkable enough event in itself -- but was denied in the second. Once again, he had to go to the High Court to receive bail.

In the meantime, Mr. Ahmed learned that he had been implicated in four more cases and the pantomime began again. He was shown arrested for two of the cases on June 20 and once again had to appeal all the way to the High Court to receive bail.

I think that it is pretty clear what is going on here. All fifteen cases were initiated on May 16 following FIRs filed by the Bureau of Anti-Corruption in Pallabi police station, but Mr. Ahmed was nevertheless shown arrested in the cases one by one.

No reasonable conclusion can be drawn from this other than that the authorities have purposefully been drawing out the process of filing cases against Mr. Ahmed in order to prolong his incarceration.

Every time he is granted bail by the High Court (after having been denied bail by the lower courts) he is shown arrested in another case and the process has to begin again. It is in this way that the authorities have managed to keep Mr. Ahmed behind bars for fifty-six days.

Had he been charged in all fifteen cases at once, he could have received bail in all fifteen cases at one go and would have been released from custody a long time ago.

But keeping him incarcerated is the whole point. On June 15, The Daily Star quoted a home ministry official as saying, "He will be shown arrested in one case after another." The official explained that this would be done step by step to ensure that Mr.

Ahmed stays behind bars for a long time.

The government could conceivably continue filing cases against Mr. Ahmed, forcing him to continue to apply to the High Court for bail each time, and thus keeping him behind bars indefinitely. Please bear in mind that Mr. Ahmed has not been convicted of anything. He may well be acquitted of all charges, but he has already spent almost two months in jail, and if the government continues with this rigmarole, who knows how long he might spend behind bars?

In addition to the fifteen cases in which he has now finally been granted bail, Mr. Ahmed, together with six senior Proshika officials, was also charged with sedition on June 21.

Once again, he had to appeal to the High Court to receive bail. It should be noted at this point that the particulars of the sedition charge are laughable on their face, and that, even if true, do not constitute sedition by any length of the imagination.

I wish that someone could explain to me how holding a meeting in which it was said that prices have risen under the current administration, that the government has lost control since it deployed the army within a year of coming to power, that the son of the PM has business interests overseas, and that the late President Zia did not declare independence constitutes sedition.

If the charges were not so serious it would be funny. But making a mockery of the judicial process is no joke.

At least the High Court has granted Mr. Ahmed bail in the "sedition" case.

Now that he has received bail in sixteen cases, Mr. Ahmed has learned that he has been shown arrested on May 7 in yet another case. Once again, bail was denied on July 10, and another lower court will hear the matter shortly.

Can anyone believe that this is anything other than an abuse of the system?

Mr. Ahmed was not even named in the FIR in this latest case and those named in the FIR have already been granted bail.

I have learned from family sources that Mr. Ahmed is not a well man and his health has deteriorated shockingly since his incarceration. He has been suffering for some years from heart disease and diabetes and since his incarceration his blood sugar levels have reached over three times the normal level and he has suffered attacks of bleeding in his urine for which he is unable to obtain the required treatment or care.

It should be noted that the charges that have been framed against Mr. Ahmed are very tendentious, largely vague and unsubstantiated, and, contrary to the government's findings, an audit conducted by the donors found no financial irregularities.

It seems clear that the government is moving against Mr. Ahmed for political reasons.

The ruling four-party alliance has never forgiven Mr. Ahmed for Proshika's voter education programme prior to the 2001 elections, which it believes ran counter to the interests of the alliance, and accuses Proshika of conducting partisan political activity under the guise of development.

The rights and the wrongs of the cases against Mr. Ahmed and other Proshika officials can all be sorted out in a court of law. The problem is that, in the meantime, the government is using the law as an instrument of punishment and not justice, and this is an absolute disgrace.

Zafar Sobhan is an Assistant Editor of The Daily Star.