Bangladesh News

Awami League (AL) General Secretary Abdul Jalil will fly to Singapore tonight for treatment as the government yesterday decided to release him on a 30-day parole considering his critical state of health.

Suffering from heart and kidney conditions compounded by diabetes, he was undergoing treatment at LabAid Cardiac Hospital.

Straight from there, he would be taken to the airport to board a Singapore-bound flight at 11:45pm today. Expenses for treatment at Mount Elizabeth Hospital would be borne by his family, Inspector General (Prisons) Brig Gen Zakir Hassan told The Daily Star.

The AL leader will be accompanied by his wife Rehana Jalil, said party sources.

Earlier in the day, a special meeting of the cabinet decided to parole the AL general secretary for treatment abroad following recommendations of a high-powered medical board.

Family members and party colleagues went to LabAid at around eight last night to take him to his Gulshan residence, but doctors said his health does not permit even a night’s stay outside hospital.

“We were ready to release him at 8:00pm as we knew that he would board the plane tomorrow [today]. But doctors said it would not be a good idea to let him leave hospital since he is on a life support system,” said the IG (prisons).

Talking to reporters at the hospital, AL Presidium Member Tofail Ahmed said: “Doctors said his condition has worsened further and so he cannot be taken home.”

Jalil has been in ill health since arrest on May 28 last year. Despite rapid worsening of his condition over past few weeks, the prisons authorities kept dismissing the demand for sending him abroad for treatment. They reasoned that the jail code does not provide for a prisoner to be treated overseas.

But his condition deteriorated sharply over the last couple of days. Alarmed at the developments, Chief Adviser Fakhruddin Ahmed convened a special meeting at his office yesterday noon. There, a five-member medical board was commissioned to observe his condition and place recommendations by the evening.

The board comprising Dr Col Amzad Hossain and Dr Lt Col Mamunur Rahman of Combined Military Hospital, Abul Kashem Khondker, head of medicine at Dhaka Medical College Hospital, Prof AKM Mohibullah, director of Heart Disease Institute, and Prof Shamim Ahmed, a physician of Kidney Foundation, examined Jalil’s state of health from 3:30pm to 5:00pm and concluded that the ailing leader should be sent abroad for treatment.

Following up the recommendations, the prison authorities submitted a petition to the government for his release on parole, Brig Gen Zakir said.

The medical board recommended taking him to a hospital with advanced healthcare facilities, he continued.

While on parole, the AL leader will have to comply with certain terms. Those include moving nowhere other than Singapore, not getting involved with any political or business activities and returning to Dhaka as soon as the treatment ends, a government notification said.

He or his family members will inform Bangladesh embassy about his health status once in every three days and will not contact any organisation or individual for any reason other than treatment, read the notification.

The government will cancel the parole anytime in case of any breach of the conditions and it may also scrap it without showing any reason, it added.

On May 28 last year, the joint forces arrested Jalil from his Mercantile Bank office in Motijheel. He was in detention under Special Powers Act for more than six months.

A case was filed against him on December 18 for concealing wealth information. But there is no progress in the investigation.

He was first admitted to Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University on June 4 after complaining of chest pain following a court order for him to be sent to prison.

In a letter signed on July 2, he pleaded with the government to release him on humanitarian grounds and said if necessary he would quit politics.

Since his arrest, five medical boards were constituted to track his health condition.

A medical board of LabAid Cardiac Hospital on Saturday said Jail needs to have an immediate kidney transplant or be put on dialysis. It also recommended taking him abroad for treatment.

A huge number of AL leaders and activists including Abdur Razzak, Tofail Ahmed and Suranjit Sengupta rushed to LabAid hospital to enquire about his health yesterday.