Pakistan frees main accused of 7/11 train blasts

Lahore (Pakistan), Oct 18: The founder of an outlawed Pakistani Islamist militant group, blamed by India for deadly bombings on trains in Mumbai in July, was released from detention under a court order.

Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, former leader 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.

Saeed was freed on Aug. 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.

But a court ruled his detention was unlawful yesterday, his lawyer Nazir Ahmed Ghazi told Reuters.

''He has been released from detention,'' said one of Saeed's senior aides, Yahya Mujahid.

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

Indian police accused Lashkar and Pakistan's military Inter-Services Intelligence agency of involvement in the July 11 bombings 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 became head of a charity, Jamaat-ud-Dawa, which was branded a terrorist organisation by the United States in April on grounds of ties to Lashkar. Pakistan has put the charity on a list of terrorist organisations but has not banned it.

''Hafiz Saeed was detained under pressure of India,'' said Abdullah Montazir, a spokesman for Jamaat-ud-Dawa. ''The government should give us an opportunity to respond to the Indian charges instead of taking action against us.''

Reuters

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