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Cassette scam case

Ershad, editor of Manavzamin to serve jail term

Staff Correspondent
Former president H M Ershad has been sentenced to six months in jail while Editor of vernacular tabloid Dainik Manavzamin Matiur Rahman Chowdhury handed down one month in prison for contempt of court.
A High Court Division Bench comprising Justice Syed Amirul Islam and Justice A K M Shafiuddin gave the verdict yesterday in the so-called sensational 'cassette scam case'.
The court also fined Publisher of
Manavzamin Mahbuba Chowdhury Tk 2,000, failing to pay which she is to spend two days in prison.
Both Ershad and Matiur will also have to pay Tk 2,000 in fine; otherwise their jail terms will be extended each by another 15 days.
The court directed Ershad and others to surrender before the deputy commissioner, Dhaka within four weeks.
The convicts will appeal against the judgement.
The court however relieved three other newspapers -- Dainik Ittefaq, Dainik Sangbad and Daily Janakantha -- and former Justice of the High Court Division Naimuddin Ahmed from the contempt charge.
The court observed that Ershad had tried to influence the judiciary. In case of the Manavzamin editor, it observed that an editor or a journalist has the freedom to publish authentic information and the whole truth, not partial truth. But the Manavzamin editor failed to do this.
Talking to The Daily Star yesterday, Ershad said he had done nothing to influence the judges. "I talked with the judge after one month of the Janata Tower graft case verdict," he said.
Matiur Rahman told newsmen that he had done any no wrong, as Ershad had confessed to his conversation and the judge concerned had resigned.
A High Court division bench sentenced Ershad to five years in jail and fined him Tk 3 crore in the Janata Tower case in August 2000. He talked to a judge of the same bench, Latifur Rahman, during the course of the trial. Manavzamin published a report on the basis of the taped conversation in September the same year.
The High Court bench after
going through the cassette yesterday observed that the allegation of monetary transaction between Ershad and the judge was not proved. However, the court was sure that he tried to influence the trial process.
About Justice Latifur Rahman, the bench said the conduct of the judge may be considered dishonest and the supreme judicial council could have probed it. Latifur Rahman resigned after the cassette scam case started.
After the Manavzamin report was published, it created quite a sensation and the then attorney general, Mahmudul Islam, brought the issue to the notice of the court. The court then issued a rule against Ershad and the tabloid for contempt of court. It also issued rules against three other newspapers -- Ittefaq, Sangbad and Janakantha -- and a retired judge Naimuddin Ahmed for making comments on the issue.
Earlier, the High Court summoned Ershad and played the audiocassette before him and the former president confessed that it was he who was talking on the phone.
Attorney General AF Hassan Arif told The Daily Star yesterday that the verdict was a milestone in the country's judicial history.