After nearly one year and nine months of staying in prison, BNP standing committee member Khandaker Mosharraf Hossain has been freed on bail on Wednesday.
The BNP leader walked out of Kashimpur High Security Central Jail-1 around 4:15pm after his release order reached the jail authorities, said jail super Subrata Kumar.
His family members and some BNP leaders and activists received Mosharraf at the jail gate.
Earlier on Sunday, the Supreme Court upheld a High Court (HC) order that granted a conditional bail for him in a money-laundering case.
A four-member bench of the Appellate Division, led by Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha, passed the order disposing of a petition filed by the Anti Corruption Commission (ACC) against the HC bail order.
Khandaker Mosharraf was arrested from his Gulshan residence on March 12, 2014 in the case.
On August 19, 2015, the High Court granted the bail to Khandaker Mosharraf in the case on condition that the accused will have to submit his passport to the court and take permission from it for travelling abroad.
The HC also ordered that Khandaker will not be able to draw money from the account at the UK-based bank concerned.
The Appealed Division stayed the HC bail for two weeks after hearing a plea moved against the HC order by the Anti Corruption Commission on August 27.
On February 6, ACC director Nasim Anwar filed the case against Dr Mosharraf with Ramna Police Station in the capital.
According to the first information report (FIR), Dr Mosharraf laundered nearly 8.04 lakh British pounds (equivalent to Tk 9.54 crore) to the United Kingdom when he was the Health and Family Welfare Minister during 2001-2006.
After examining the evidence and other documents, the ACC found a fixed term deposit of about 8.04 lakh British pound in a joint account (AC 108492) of Dr Khandaker Mosharraf and his wife, Bilkis Akter Hossain, at Lloyds TSB Offshore Private Banking, Guernsey.
Source: Ittefaq