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Published : 11 Apr 2013, 02:19 PM
Rahman was brought before the Additional Metropolitan Magistrate Shahidul Islam of Dhaka’s Chief Metropolitan Magistrate’s Court in the morning, hours after his arrest at the newspaper office.
Later, the court granted police 13 days’ remand to question him in three cases.
When his lawyers asked him to sign the affidavit for bail, Rahman stood up and told the court, “I know I won’t get bail, but remand will be granted. The judge has got his orders from the high-up. That’s why I’m standing up for myself at the hearing.”
“I’m not a fool ... I won’t file ‘vakalatnama’.”
He interrupted State Prosecutor Abdullah Babu when he was arguing for grilling Rahman.
At the hearing, Rahman, who already spent time in prison for contempt of court, addressed the magistrate and said, “I know you can’t do anything without orders from higher authorities.”
The lawyers arguing for the state quickly protested his remark.
They said such offensive remarks by the engineer-turned journalist proved his bad taste.
Rahman was arrested on charges of sedition and for unlawfully publishing an alleged Skype conversation of a former Chairman of the International Crimes Tribunal.
He was later taken to the office of the Detective Branch of Police on Minto Road in the capital.
Police prayed for 10 days’ remand in a case filed by ICT prosecutor Shahidur Rahman on Dec 14 at the Tejgaon Police Station over the publication of the Skype conversation of Justice Nizamul Huq and a Belgium-based legal expert Ahmed Ziauddin, but the court granted only seven days.
Police also sought remand of seven days each in two other cases filed at the Tejgaon Police Station over vandalism and assaulting policemen. The court granted three days in each of the cases.
“You are lying,” Rahman told Abdullah Babu at the beginning of the hearing of the remand pleas.
With this, the lawyers for the state started shouting ‘Razakar’ ‘Razakar’ at him and did not let him speak further.
The Additional Metropolitan Magistrate said,” None of us who has turned up here is illiterate. We have standard. All speaks in an acceptable manner here.”
Rahman said, “The Economist was the first to run the Skype conversation”.
He tried to justify publishing the conversation on Amar Desh saying, “I just ran it in quote-unquote. I have done no crime by doing so.”
Secular groups allege Rahman is the moving force behind whipping up religious passion against bloggers and online activists leading the Shahbagh's Ganajagaran Mancha. The Mancha had even set a deadline for the arrest of Rahman
He has been the Acting Editor of Amar Desh since 2008. BNP leader Mosaddek Ali Falu is the owner of the newspaper.
He had been staying in the Amar Desh office for a long time to avoid arrest.
Mahmudur has hit the headlines often for the wrong reason with his controversial statements.
