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 out in fresh air in eight years," Quasem, 40, told AFP in an exclusive interview at his home. "I thought they were going to kill me." IMAGES AND SOUNDBITES