Former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has been re-arrested over the deadly raid of the Red Mosque in Islamabad in 2007, just a day after a court gave him bail in a separate case.
“We have put general Musharraf under house arrest in a case involving a military operation on an Islamabad mosque,” Muhammad Rizwan, a senior official of the Islamabad police told reporters on Thursday. “We will present him before a court on Friday.”
Musharraf ordered the raid against the mosque in July 2007, which saw nearly 100 people killed, including one of the administrators. The siege also left at least 10 army commandos dead.
“Police have officially arrested general Musharraf and put him under house arrest. We will file his bail application soon,” said Muhammad Amjad, the secretary general of Musharraf’s All Pakistan Muslim League (APML).
“It is part of a political victimization and nothing else, but we will continue our legal battle to win freedom for Pervez Musharraf,” he added.
“We hope he will get bail in this new case also very soon. He will leave his house only when he will go to fly abroad, otherwise he will stay there even after being released in all cases,” Amjad said, referring to Musharraf™s fortified villa on the edge of Islamabad, which has been declared a sub-jail.
On Wednesday, the Supreme Court of Pakistan granted bail to Musharraf over the 2006 death of Baluch politician Akbar Bugti, a move that would have seen him freed after nearly six months of house arrest.
Musharraf was president of Pakistan when Bugti, the main leader in the southwestern province of Balochistan, died during an army raid in August 2006.
Musharraf had already been granted bail in two other major cases against him, including the Benazir Bhutto case.
Former Pakistani Prime Minister Bhutto was killed in a gun-and-bomb attack on December 27, 2007 as she was leaving an election rally in the city of Rawalpindi. Musharraf has been accused of failing to provide enough security for Bhutto after she returned from exile on October 18, 2007.
He is also facing charges of illegally putting judges under house arrest, after he sacked Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, declared a state of emergency, and suspended the constitution, during a crackdown on the judiciary in 2007.
In addition, Musharraf is accused of violating the constitution for giving the order to arrest the judges.
The 70-year-old former general, who seized power in a bloodless coup in October 1999, stepped down as president of the country in August 2008, about six months after his allies lost parliamentary elections in February 2008 and the new government threatened to impeach him. A year later, he left the country.
In March 2013, Musharraf returned to Pakistan after nearly four years of self-imposed exile in London and Dubai.
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Copyright: Press TV