Pakistan court: Free alleged Mumbai-linked cleric

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(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-06-02 20:18

LAHORE -- A Pakistani court ordered the release of the founder of banned Pakistani militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba because there was insufficient evidence to link him to last year's deadly Mumbai attacks, his lawyer said Tuesday.

India immediately condemned the ruling as confirmation that Pakistan is not serious about bringing to justice militants whose repeated attacks across the border have long inflamed tensions between the nuclear-armed rivals.

The Lahore High Court's decision to free Hafiz Mohammed Saeed from house arrest came as tensions are spiking in Pakistan's northwest along the Afghan border. Security forces early Tuesday rescued dozens of students and others kidnapped by militants, and the army continued to battle Taliban fighters in the Swat Valley.

Pakistan court: Free alleged Mumbai-linked cleric

In this Tuesday May 5, 2009 file photo, Hafiz Mohammed Saeed, chief of an Islamic charity Jamaat-ud-Dawa, leaves after appearing before the judicial review board of High Court in Lahore, Pakistan. [Agencies]

India has demanded that Pakistan vigorously pursue those behind the November siege of its commercial capital that killed 166 people and left nine of 10 gunmen dead. The survivor, Pakistani Mohammed Ajmal Kasab, was captured and is on trial in India.

Saeed was among several suspects taken into custody in December in Pakistan, which came under tremendous pressure from the United States and other governments to investigate domestic links to the attacks.

The 59-year-old cleric created Lashkar-e-Taiba in the late 1980s to fight Indian rule in Kashmir, the mostly Muslim Himalayan region claimed by both South Asian countries. The group, which is believed to have supporters within Pakistan's intelligence agency, was banned by Pakistan in a security clampdown that followed the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States. Washington lists it as a terrorist organization.

But the group re-emerged as Jamaat-ud-Dawa, which Saeed says is a charity with no links to terrorism. After the Mumbai attacks, the United Nations listed Jamat-ud-Dawa as a front for Lashkar-e-Taiba, prompting Pakistan to freeze the group's assets and put its leaders under house arrest.

Pakistan has not publicly announced any indictment or charge against Saeed, and it is unclear what role he is suspected of playing in the Mumbai attacks.

Saeed challenged his detention in court, and lawyer A.K. Dogar emerged from a hearing Tuesday and said a three-judge panel had decided the detention was "against the law and constitution of the country." Supporters of Saeed shouted "God is Great!"

A copy of the court order could not immediately be obtained. Attorney General Sardar Latif Khosa said the government would read the detailed judgment before deciding whether to appeal.

"We are unhappy that Pakistan does not show the degree of seriousness and commitment that it should to bring to justice perpetrators of the Mumbai terror attack," India's Home Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram told reporters in New Delhi after the ruling.

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