The New Nation - Internet Edition

Bdnews24.com, Dhaka

BNP leader M Shamsul Islam was freed on bail from Dhaka Central Jail yesterday in the Gatco graft case, a prison official said.

The BNP standing committee member was released around 12.20, prison official Towhid Hossain told bdnews24.com.

Party supporters garlanded Islam with flowers as he left the jail, before heading home, his lawyer Farhad Hossain told bdnews24.

The High Court granted Islam two months' bail on Monday, in the GATCO scam case filed by the Anticorruption Commission.

The court also granted bail on the same day to former BNP secretary general Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan, who was freed on Wednesday.

A Dhaka court had sent Islam and Bhuiyan to jail after they turned themselves in on May 18.

Jamaat-e-Islami chief Motiur Rahman Nizami was also earlier released from jail on twomonths' bail, on July 15, in the same case.

The ACC filed the case against former prime minister Khaleda Zia, son Arafat Rahman Coco and 11 others on Sept 2 last year, on charges of awarding Global Agro Trade Company a cargo-handling deal through misuse of power.