Dhaka orders treason probe against daily editor

A Bangladeshi court on Thursday ordered a treason probe against the editor of a leading newspaper for pu-blishing “false and distorted” corruption stories ab-out Prime Minister Shei-kh Hasina Wajed during the Army-backed emergency rule in 2007-2008.

“Metropolitan magistrate Snigdha Rani orde-red police to accept the sedition complaint brou-ght against (the Daily Star editor) Mahfuz Anam... She also asked the concerned police station to submit the investigation report by March 28,” a court official said. He said assistant public prosecutor M. Mostafizur Rahman Dulal lodged the complaint seeking Mr Anam’s trial on treason charges for running “false and distorted” corruption stories against Ms Wajed, fed by the military-intelligence agency, in an effort to “efface” her from politics.

Legal experts, however, said the government consent would be required to launch Mr Anam’s trial on sedition charges under the country’s law.

During the 2007-08 military-backed interim government, a number of gr-aft cases were filed against politicians including Ms Wajed and her archrival Khaleda Zia of Bangl-adesh Nationalist party while the two leaders were kept in make-shift jails for months to face trial.

But the complaint was lodged days after Anam in a TV talk show said running the reports fed by the Directorate-General of Forces Intelligence without verification was a “big blunder” in his career. Several other major newspapers also carried identical reports supplied by the intelligence agency during the emergency rule, but Mr Anam’s admission sparked a massive uproar.