Blindfolded, handcuffed and bundled out of his secret prison for the first time in eight years, Bangladeshi barrister Ahmad Bin Quasem held his breath and listened for the sound of a cocked pistol.
Instead, he was tossed from a car and into a muddy ditch on Dhaka's outskirts — alive, at liberty, and with no knowledge of the national upheaval that had prompted his abrupt release.
"That's the first time I got fresh air in eight years," Quasem, 40, told reporters. "I thought they were going to kill me."