SC denies Haji Salim bail

The Appellate Division of the Supreme Court yesterday refused to grant bail to Awami League lawmaker Haji Md Salim in a corruption case.

The High Court earlier this year upheld his conviction and 10 years' imprisonment sentence.

The SC, however, kept Haji Salim's bail petition with the record and set October 23 for further hearing on it and the leave to appeal petition.

On May 23 this year, Salim filed the nearly-1,200 page leave to appeal petition, which includes the bail petition, with the Appellate Division through his lawyer Sayeed Ahmed Raza.

A three-member bench of the Appellate Division headed by Chief Justice Hasan Foez Siddique passed the order after hearing the bail petition. The two other judges are Justice Obaidul Hassan and Justice M Enayetur Rahim.

Sayeed Ahmed Raza told The Daily Star that the apex court kept his client's bail petition as it will hear it in details.

Meanwhile, Anti-Corruption Commission's (ACC's) lawyer Khurshid Alam Khan told this correspondent that Haji Salim did not get bail from the SC and therefore cannot be released from jail.

He is currently in the prisons cell of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University (BSMMU) for treatment, the lawyer said.

He was taken to BSMMU on May 23 for treatment, a day after he was sent to Dhaka Central Jail in Keraniganj in the corruption case filed by the ACC during the military-backed caretaker government in 2007.

On February 10 this year, the HC released the full text of a verdict directing Salim to surrender to the trial court in 30 days.

Haji Salim surrendered before a Dhaka court on May 22.

The HC on March 9 last year upheld a lower court's verdict, passed on April 27, 2008, sentencing Salim to 10 years in prison.