Alastair Lawson BBC correspondent in Dhaka

At least 15 people were killed in the cinema blasts

The reporter, Enamul Huque Chowdhury, was imprisoned in December after he wrote a report on a series of bomb blasts in cinemas in the northern town of Mymensingh at the end of last year.

His report falsely quoted the home minister as saying that the al-Qaeda movement may have been responsible for the attacks.

Mr Chowdhury's lawyers say that he has been mistreated and possibly tortured since his arrest.

Criminal proceedings

Mr Chowdhury emerged from prison looking weak and tired.

He still faces criminal proceedings after the government accused him of fabricating comments made by the home minister.

The journalist was imprisoned soon after he wrote his story for Reuters about al-Qaeda.

At least 15 people were killed in the attacks and 20 seriously injured.

It is still not known who was responsible.

The government considered the quote to be highly embarrassing because earlier it had gone out of its way to deny reports in western news magazines that there is an al-Qaeda presence in Bangladesh.

Afterwards the home minister insisted that he had never attributed the attack to al-Qaeda.

Reuters then withdrew the report saying it could not guarantee its accuracy.

'Harsh treatment'

Mr Chowdhury was accused of slandering the government and sacked from his full-time job at the state-run BSS news agency.

He was held in Dhaka's notorious central jail, renowned for its poor conditions and overcrowding.

Human rights groups have accused the government of treating Mr Chowdhury far too harshly.

They argue that all he did was make a basic reporting error.