PM's flight glitch: Biman official gets bail

The High Court today granted bail to Bangladesh Biman’s engineer, Officer Md Nazmul Haque in a case filed for sabotage leading to the emergency landing of a flight carrying Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on her way to Budapest in November last year.

The court, however, restricted Nazmul from leaving the country and ordered him to surrender his passport to the chief metropolitan magistrate’s court in Dhaka.

The bench of Justice M Enayetur Rahim and Justice Shahidul Karim came up with the verdict after hearing a petition filed by Nazmul Haque, who was arrested on January 10 this year, seeking bail in the case.

Nazmul’s lawyer Barrister Shanjid Siddique told The Daily Star that there is no legal bar to his client’s release from jail following the HC order.

It has been stated in the case filed with Biman Bandar Police Station that while Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was travelling to Hungary by a VVIP flight of Bangladesh Biman, the aircraft made an emergency landing at Ashkhabad in Turkmenistan, Nazmul’s lawyer said.

Barrister Shanjid also said it has been revealed in an investigation conducted by Biman that all the nine accused persons had tempered with the B-nut of the left engine causing the engine oil to fail which amounts to sabotage.          

The HC has granted bail to Nazmul Haque on the ground that he was with the prime minister in the same flight and he repaired the aircraft after its emergency landing, the lawyer added.