The New Nation - Internet Edition

Staff Reporter

Her personal physician Prof Dr ABM Abdullah of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University (BSMMU) has formally advised the jail authorities to send detained former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina abroad for treatment after getting her consent.

Disclosing this, one of her top counsel Barrister Shafique Ahmed yesterday said there is no legal bar for the Government to send Sheikh Hasina, who is also the President of the Awami League (AL), abroad for treatment on bail.

"We are waiting for the action of the jail authorities over the doctor's advice," the lawyer told journalists avoiding a direct answer as to whether they would move the High Court for her bail within a day or two.

"The cases against her are not serious enough to deny bail," Barrister Shafique said, adding, "The Court can easily grant bail to the former Prime Minister on health ground as per the law of the land."

Echoing the same view, another senior legal expert said, "The emergency power rules (EPR), under which her cases are being tried, denies the accused right to receive bail from a lower Court but it did not take away the prosecution's right to apply for bail for the accused and the Government's right to offer bail."

The EPR did not curtail the High Court's right to grant bail, he asserted.

Noted jurist Dr Shahdeen Malick opined that Sheikh Hasina can be released on bail for treatment even by a lower Court under section 497 of the CrPC. This section of the CrPC allows the Court to grant bail to an accused or a group of accused arrested vide a non- bail able law.

"Even if the Court feels the accused person may get death penalty, which is a non-bail able case, it can grant if the accused is a minor of less than 16 years or either a woman or a sick person under 497 of the CrPC, which the emergency power rules did not repealed," he said, citing that the then JSD General Secretary ASM Abdur Rob was sent Germany directly from his prison cell for treatment though he was serving 15 years imprisonment in a treason case.