Fakhrul, Abbas get High Court bail for 6 months

The High Court yesterday granted bail to BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir and Standing Committee member Mirza Abbas for six months in a case involving a clash between party activists and police last month.

The division bench of Justice Md Salim and Justice Md Riaz Uddin Khan also issued a rule, asking the state to explain why the BNP leaders should not be granted permanent bail.

The state has been asked to respond to the rule within four weeks.

Fakhrul and Abbas were picked up from their homes hours after the 7 December clash at Nayapaltan in the capital and were shown arrested the next day.

The senior BNP leaders were earlier denied bail four times by lower courts in this case.

At Tuesday's hearing, senior lawyer Zainul Abedin stood for the bail plea, while Additional Attorney General SM Munir represented the state.

"Now, there is no bar to their release from jail," Zainul Abedin told journalists.

Additional Attorney General SM Munir told The Business Standard that the state will appeal against the High Court order.

Advocate Zainul Abedin said they told the court in their arguments that the names of the two BNP leaders were not in the first information report of the case and that both of them are elderly.

The other two accused in the case – Aman Ullah Aman and Abdul Quader Jewel – were earlier granted bail by the lower court.

Defence lawyer Sagir Hossain Leone filed separate bail petitions on behalf of Fakhrul and Abbas on 2 January, according to BNP Legal Secretary Barrister Kaiser Kamal.

According to lawyers and family sources, 92 cases have been filed against Mirza Fakhrul in the past 10 years. Of them, 20 to 25 are now active, according to the lawyers handling his cases. The BNP secretary general has served 350 days in jail since 2012.

Mirza Abbas's lawyers said 155 cases have been filed against the opposition leader since 2007.