Mahmudur gets SC bail, no bar to release

The Supreme Court today upheld a High Court order that granted bail to Mahmudur Rahman, acting editor of Bangla daily Amar Desh, in a sedition case.

A five-member bench of the Appellate Division of the SC headed by Chief Justice dismissed a petition filed by the government seeking stay on the HC bail order.

Mahmudur’s lawyer Muhammad Salahuddin told The Daily Star that so far his client has received lower court and High Court bail in all of the 70 cases filed against him.

Attorney General Mahbubey Alam told this daily that Mahmudur will get release from jail following this order. “The apex court passed the order on ground that the charge sheet of the sedition case was not submitted to the trial court and Mahmudur has been in jail for long.”

Sahidur Rahman, a prosecutor of the International Crimes Tribunal, filed the case against Mahmudur with Tejgaon Police Station on December 13, 2012, under Information and Communication Technology Act, 2006.

In the case, Mahmudur was charged with sedition by publishing Skype conversations between Justice Md Nizamul Huq, then chairman of International Crimes Tribunal-1, and Ahmed Ziauddin, an expatriate Bangladeshi legal expert.

According to the case statement, Mahmudur, by publishing conversations after hacking Skype, created a negative impression about the tribunal at home and abroad and obstructed its proceedings and exercise of legal authority.

Amid controversy, Justice Nizamul Huq, now an Appellate Division judge, resigned from the post of the ICT-1 chairman December 11, 2012.

Mahmudur was arrested at his newspaper office in the capital’s Karwan Bazar on April 11, 2013. Following a bail petition filed by Mahmudur, the HC granted bail to him for six months in the case filed under the ICT act.

The government later on filed a petition with the SC seeking stay on the HC order.