Former Jamaat-e-Islami chief released on bail in Sri Lanka

By Riyaz ul Khaliq

ISTANBUL (AA) – The former chief of Jamaat-e-Islami Sri Lanka was released on bail by a Colombo court on Wednesday, sources said.

“Our lawyers had challenged the detention of Usthadh Rasheed Hajjul Akbar as illegal under fundamental rights violation in the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka,” sources close to the case told Anadolu Agency from Colombo.

Akbar, 61, was arrested last year in March by the counterterrorism and investigation division of the Sri Lankan police.

“The top court set the case for hearing on Dec. 17 where the government’s top counsel agreed to release Akbar on bail,” the sources said.

Akbar’s family lives in Mawanella, some 100 kilometers (62 miles) east of the capital Colombo.

He was previously arrested in August 2019, following the Easter bombings in April that year which killed over 250 people.

Akbar headed Jamaat-e-Islami Sri Lanka for 24 years – from 1994 to 2018.

“There is no indictment against him and the attorney general agreed in court to release him on bail,” the sources said.

Under the anti-terrorism act, the Sri Lankan government “can keep a person in detention for at least 18 months without producing him in court.”​​​​​​​