Mahfuz Anam granted bail in Mirza Abbas' defamation case
Court Correspondent
A Dhaka court yesterday granted bail to the Shaptahik 2000 publisher Mahfuz Anam in a defamation case filed by former housing and public works minister Mirza Abbas for running a ''defamatory'' report along with photographs on August 25.On Sunday, another Dhaka court issued an arrest warrant against Mahfuz Anam, rejecting the defence lawyers' oral appeal as their client (Anam) could not appear before the court due to political unrest. Metropolitan Magistrate ABM Abdul Fattah granted him bail after Mahfuz Anam along with his lawyers appeared before the court and sought the bail. On November 9, Abbas filed the case against the editor, publisher and two reporters of the weekly magazine. Moving the bail petition, the defence lawyers prayed for bail arguing that the magazine ran a factual story and the case was filed as part of a conspiracy to harass Mahfuz Anam, the lawyers said. In his complaint, Mirza Abbas mentioned that the weekly had published a defamatory news item on August 25 that damaged his reputation, name and fame in the society as well as in the political arena. Advocates Syed Ahmed Gazi, Abdul Baten, Mahbubul Haque, Chaitanya Chandra Halder, Sabbir Ahmed, Prasanta Kumar Karmaker and barrister Abdul Halim appeared for the publisher.
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