Former army chief Lt General (retd) Mahbubur Rahman has sent a rejoinder to a report published in The Daily Star on Wednesday headlined “2 generals sought US support for coup."

He said the report based on a leaked US diplomatic cable published by WikiLeaks bears no truth about him. In

2004, he held no military office and was just a retired soldier.

In the rejoinder he said "Country knows it well, I am an ardent believer of democracy and throughout my career in the army or retired life afterwards, I always held the ideals and spirit of democracy and championed its cause. I may cite cm event, it was on 20th May, 1996, the country was in a serious military crisis which threatened the very national security and the future of democracy. It was then the caretaker government headed by former chief justice, Justice Habibur Rahman and the country was already poised for the 7th national parliament election. Due to serious contradictions between the president and the chief of army staff and defiance of the latter, a grave situation of indiscipline and disorder development its election responsibility. I responded to the call and with the total support of the patriotic, democratic and constitution abiding officers and men, brought back discipline and order in the army and helped carry out government to conduct a free, fare, impartial and successful election.”

The former army chief claimed to have played a key role in restoring discipline in the army in May 1996 before the elections when the president and the chief of army developed contradiction and created a grave situation.

He also said, “I may also mention that immediately on assumption of my office as chiefofstaffon21stMay, 1996, the first two visitors I received at Army HQs were Ambassador David Merill of United States and Ambassador Zhang Xujuang of China who expressed their happiness find appreciation. I may also mention that during my period as chief of army staff (CAS), I was invited to United States once by my counterpart, General Dannis Reimer, CAS, US Army and once by Secretary, Defense, Bill Cohen. They both extended their cooperation and assistance and highly praised our army's role for upholding democracy and UN Peace keeping operation."