DHAKA, 3 August 2007 — A Bangladesh top court bench yesterday ruled that former Prime Minister Hasina Wajed arrested as part of the emergency government’s corruption crackdown should not be released on bail, an official said.

The Supreme Court overturned a court order given on Monday that said Hasina, who served as prime minister between 1996 and 2001 and faces a $435,000 extortion case, should be released from detention.

“The Appellate Division (of the Supreme Court) stayed the High Court order that granted bail to detained former Prime Minister Hasina,” said Deputy Attorney General Abdur Rouf. The court stayed till Aug.14 the operation of the High Court order that granted ad-interim bail to Hasina in an extortion case brought against her.

The court on July 30 granted bail to Hasina and ordered the authorities not to proceed with the case under Emergency Power Rules.

Lawyers for Hasina had earlier argued that the government was not entitled to prosecute her under emergency rules currently in force in the country. Hasina, leader of the Awami League party, is one of 150 high-profile figures detained by the military-backed government, which is waging a massive anti-graft campaign.

The government took power in January following months of political violence and has promised to clean up Bangladesh’s notoriously corrupt politics before holding elections at the end of 2008.

The former prime minister has denied the charges and told a court they were aimed at forcing her out of politics. The government has rejected that claim.

Hasina and her rival Khaleda Zia, another former premier, are widely blamed for 16 years of misrule during which corruption became rampant in Bangladesh.

Four Islamists Arrested

Security forces arrested four suspected members of a banned militant group from a house in the capital yesterday and seized a 10-kg bomb and four grenades, an official said.

The militants belonged to the Jamatul Mujahedeen, one of the underground groups fighting for enforcement of Shariah in Bangladesh.

The raid was carried out by a team of the elite Rapid Action Battalion on a house in the Mirpur area of Dhaka, an official said. “The captured militants have confessed they were members of the Jamatul Mujahedeen,” the official said.

The Islamist organizations, blamed for a wave of bombings in 2005, were trying to regroup after six top leaders were hanged in March following their conviction for those attacks, intelligence officers said.

Last month security forces arrested four militants with three kilograms of powdered explosives and 15 grenades from Kishorganj in northern Bangladesh.