MONTGOMERY, Ala.  The former governor of Alabama, Don Siegelman, was ordered Thursday to be released from prison on bond by a federal appeals court, pending his broader appeal in a bribery conviction last June.

Mr. Siegelman, a Democrat, had been taken to prison immediately following his sentencing last year, an unusual move by federal authorities in a white-collar case. His lawyers said Thursday that he never should have been imprisoned while he appealed his conviction.

Thursday’s ruling by the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit in Atlanta said Mr. Siegelman’s larger appeal had raised “substantial questions,” and so the former governor should be released from the federal prison where he has already served nine months of a seven-year sentence.

The politically charged case has been cited by Democrats here and in Washington as an example of politics influencing decisions by the Department of Justice, a charge Republicans have angrily denied.