In New Case, Former Leader of Pakistan Is Arrested

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/11/world/asia/pakistan-musharraf.html

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LONDON — The Pakistani police arrested Pervez Musharraf, the nation’s former military ruler, on Thursday, opening a new criminal prosecution against him that frustrated plans by his supporters to fly him out of Pakistan.

The Islamabad High Court ordered Mr. Musharraf, 70, a retired general, detained after approving an application from a cleric who wants him tried for his role in the deadly siege of the Red Mosque in Islamabad in 2007.

Muhammad Rizwan, a senior Islamabad police official, told reporters that Mr. Musharraf would remain under house arrest at his villa outside Islamabad, where he has been confined since April.

It is not clear, however, whether the court order represents a major obstacle to Mr. Musharraf’s plans to leave Pakistan, or a temporary one.

Only a day earlier, on Wednesday, the Supreme Court granted Mr. Musharraf bail in a separate criminal case, and his lawyers said they hoped that he would be able to fly to Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, to visit his aging mother almost immediately.

That order was the latest in a series of judicial successes for Mr. Musharraf, who had already been granted bail in two other cases related to his nine years in power.

Thursday’s court order, however, opens a new legal battle for Mr. Musharraf. It stems from an eight-day confrontation at an extremist mosque in which army commandos clashed with heavily armed Islamists inside the building. At least 102 people died in the operation, including dozens of young students and at least 10 commandos from an elite Pakistani unit.

One of the two clerics who controlled the Red Mosque died in the fighting. The other, his brother Maulana Abdul Aziz, was jailed but has since been set free.

For more than a year now, Mr. Aziz has been appealing to the courts to have Mr. Musharraf tried for his part in the siege. The courts had not complied with his wish until Thursday.

But Mr. Musharraf’s route out of Pakistan is not entirely blocked. If the Supreme Court grants him bail in the Red Mosque case, as it did in the other three criminal prosecutions, then he can still leave Pakistan.

Muhammad Amjad, a senior official with Mr. Musharraf’s party, said it would be applying for bail in the case immediately.

Mr. Musharraf insists that if he leaves Pakistan it will not be for long, and that he will ultimately return to fight all charges against him and clear his name.