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Erash auies

attack polic

after trial

date extended

DHAKA: Hundreds of riot police fought rock and bomb-throwing supporters of jailed former president Hossain Mohammad Ershad on Monday as a Dhaka court put off his murder trial until September 9, witnesses said.

The trial, twice postponed since July 16, was to begin on Monday at a court near the Dhaka central jail, where Ershad has been serving a 23-year prison sentence since 1991.

Crowds of men and women gathered outside the jail chanting "release our leader" and "it won't be long before he comes out and joins us," witnesses said.

They tried unsuccessfully to push through police barricade but had a rare glimpse of Ershad, chief of the opposition Jatiya Party, while police drove him to the court.

Ershad waved from the police vehicle and smiled, one witness said.

While dispersing, the crowds attacked police with bombs and rocks. Police used teargas and truncheons in a short-lived but fierce battle. At least 50 people were injured in the clashes, witnesses said.

Ershad, a general who seized power in a 1982 bloodless coup was deposed in December, 1990, in a popular uprising.

He is in jail for keeping unlicenced firearms and corruption, and police recently implicated him in the killing of rebel army Major-General Abul Manzur following a 1981 abortive mutiny in Chittagong port city in which ex-president Ziaur Rahman, husband of current Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia, was killed.-Reuter