Pak court orders release of militant leader

Lahore, Oct 17: A Pakistani court today ordered the release of the founder of an outlawed Islamist militant group blamed by India for bloody train blasts in Mumbai in July, his lawyer said.

Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, former leader and founder of the Lashkar-e-Taiba militant group, was put under house arrest in the city of Lahore in August, shortly before he was due to address a rally.

He was released on August 28 on the orders of the Lahore High Court but almost immediately re-arrested under a public order law which allows authorities to detain anyone without trial for up to three months.

''The court has declared that the detention of Hafiz Saeed is against the law and the constitution and he should be released immediately,'' his lawyer, Nazir Ahmed Ghazi, told Reuters.

Saeed was still being held under house arrest in Lahore but one of his aides said it was hoped he would be released later in the day.

Saeed founded Lashkar-e-Taiba in the early 1990s but quit as leader days after India accused it of involvement in an attack on the Indian parliament in December 2001, which brought Pakistan and India to the brink of a war.

Indian police also accused Lashkar and Pakistan's military spy agency, Inter-Services Intelligence, of involvement in the July 11 bomb blasts on commuter trains in Mumbai that killed 186 people and wounded hundreds.

Both Pakistan and Lashkar rejected the charge.

Pakistan banned Lashkar-e-Taiba in January 2002.

Saeed then became the head of a charity, Jamaat-ud-Dawa, which was branded a terrorist organisation by the United States in April because of its ties to Lashkar.

Pakistan has put the charity on a watchlist of terrorist organisations but not banned it.

Jamaat-ud-Dawa hailed the court decision as ''victory for the truth''.

''Hafiz Saeed was detained under pressure of India,'' Abdullah Montazir, a spokesman for the charity said.

''The government should give us an opportunity to respond to the Indian charges instead of taking action against us,'' he said.

REUTERS

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