Mahmudur out on bail, at last

Amar Desh acting editor Mahmudur Rahman walked free on bail from Kashimpur Central Jail-2 in Gazipur yesterday after spending over three and a half years behind bars.

“We freed him around 1:00pm after scrutinising documents related to his bail,” Senior Jail Superintendent Proshanto Kumar Banik told The Daily Star.

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Mahmudur was implicated in over 70 cases, including one for allegedly plotting to abduct and murder Sajeeb Wazed Joy, son of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.

A former energy adviser and pro-BNP journalist, Mahmudur had been in jail since his arrest at his newspaper office on April 11, 2013 on charges of sedition and publishing a Skype conversation between former International Crimes Tribunal chairman Justice Nizamul Huq and an expatriate Bangladeshi legal expert Ahmed Ziauddin.

The Supreme Court on October 31 upheld the bail he was granted in the case involving Joy and paved the way for his release.

BNP leaders SM Jahid Hossain and Farhad Halim, among others, greeted Mahmudur at the jail gate yesterday.

He was first arrested on June 2, 2010 in a case filed for allegedly preventing police from carrying out their duties. Later, he was sentenced to six months' imprisonment for contempt of court.

In August last year, a Dhaka court sentenced Mahmudur to three years in prison for not submitting his wealth statement to the Anti-Corruption Commission deliberately.

Law enforcers had locked the Bangla daily's press in April 2013. Later, the newspaper authorities suspended its publication alleging government obstruction.