A Barisal court yesterday acquitted all of the 13 accused in a case filed in connection with 17 August series bomb blasts in the city as the prosecution failed to prove the charges.
Rabiul Hassan, judge of the Barisal Divisional Speedy Trial Tribunal, yesterday also ordered release of nine of the accused in custody if they are not accused in any other case.
After the series bomb blasts in 18 places of the city on August 17 in 2005, police lodged 12 cases in connection with the incidents.
The case No 10 was filed for bomb blast in front of Roads and Highways office at Amtala Moar in the city.
With this, trial of five of the 12 cases has been completed and only in one of the cases seven people including four absconding ones were sentenced to life-term imprisonment on July 30 this year.
The acquitted 13 accused of case No 10 are: Golam Morshed Chowdhury Reza, chemistry honors student, Jalal Arefin, SSC student, Hafez Saiful Islam, Abu Yusuf Majumdar, Abu Solaiman Sujan, blind and HSC student, also officials and staffs of Al Ikram Social Welfare Society, Md Maruf, Jasimuddin, Abdus Sobahan, Giasuddin, Sarwar, Abdur Rahim and Zahid Babu, their associates and Ziaur Rahman Zia, director of Al Ikram.
The first nine accused were present during pronouncement of the verdict while the four others are still absconding.
However, the arrestees were not released from jail even after being acquitted by the court as they are also accused in seven other cases lodged in connection with similar incidents.
Advocate Kazi Munir Hussein, special prosecutor in charge of the tribunal, admitted that there were faults in filing and investigating the sensitive cases involving state security.