Jamaat’s Azharul expected to be released from prison Wednesday, says lawyer

Jamaat-e-Islami leader ATM Azharul Islam, who was acquitted of all charges in a war crimes case, is expected to be released from prison on Wednesday morning.

In a Facebook post on Tuesday afternoon, his legal counsel Md Shishir Manir wrote: “In Sha Allah [God willing], we hope that Wednesday morning around 9-10am, he (Azharul Islam) will be released from the prison cell of PG Hospital.”

Dhaka Central Jail (Keraniganj) Jailer AKM Masum said that Azharul is currently in hospital care at the cardiac block of Bangladesh Medical University.

The prison authorities will take steps once the court documents on Azharul’s release are received, he added.

Azharul, then assistant secretary general of Jamaat, was among those sentenced to death by the International Crimes Tribunal on war crimes charges, a verdict upheld until this week.

However, after a dramatic shift in the political landscape sparked by the July Uprising, the top court reconsidered the case upon Azharul’s review petition.

The Appellate Division also ordered Azharul's release, provided no other cases are pending against him. To ensure this, it also issued a short order on the release in response to a plea from his legal team.

This brief three-page verdict by the seven-member bench of the Appellate Division, led by Chief Justice Syed Refaat Ahmed, was released on Tuesday afternoon.

According to the lawyers, once this short order reaches the prison authorities from the ICT, Azharul will be released.