DHAKA, July 15, 2008 (AFP) - The leader of Bangladesh's biggest Islamic party Jamaat-e-Islami, who has been detained since May on corruption charges, was freed on bail Tuesday, police said.

Matiur Rahman Nizami, who served as industries minister in the country's most recently elected government, was arrested over the awarding of a container handling contract to a local firm in 2003.

'Nizami has just been released from prison,' national prisons chief Brigadier General Zakir Hassan told AFP.

'He has been granted bail by the High Court in a graft case. We have released him after we received the bail order.'

Nizami was one of four senior ministers in the cabinet of detained ex-premier Khaleda Zia charged in connection with the container handling contract.

The High Court on Tuesday suspended the case against Zia on the same charges for three months, effectively paving the way for her to travel abroad for medical treatment.

Scores of former ministers, lawmakers and their family members have been sentenced to between five and 20 years in jail by fast-track anti-graft courts set up by the military-backed government.

Zia's Islamist-allied coalition government, led by her Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), held power until October 2006.

Bangladesh has been under emergency rule since January 11, 2007, when elections were cancelled after months of violence over claims of vote-rigging.

An army-backed interim government took power the next day and launched a massive crackdown on corruption, pledging to clean up the country's politics before reinstating democracy through fresh elections set for December 2008.

More than 150 top politicians, including Zia and her bitter rival Sheikh Hasina Wajed, another former prime minister and leader of the opposition Awami League, have been detained.

Apart from Sheikh Hasina, who was freed last month in an apparent deal with Dhaka in return for her party's support of government polls in December, Nizami is the most influential leader to be released by the interim authorities.

Nizami was also accused of murder and war crimes last month by a group of Bangladesh's 1971 independence war veterans.

In a case filed by a former freedom fighter, Nizami was accused along with 12 others of helping the Pakistan army plan a mass killing in which thousands of villagers died.

Jamaat-e-Islami has dismissed the charge as an attempt to 'defame' the party.