ISLAMABAD - Pakistan authorities rearrested on Friday a lawyer who had spearheaded opposition to President Pervez Musharraf, less than 18 hours after he had been released from detention for a Muslim holiday, his family said. Aitzaz Ahsan, a former member of the National Assembly for Benazir Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party, was picked up by police at a motorway restaurant on his way to Islamabad from the eastern city of Lahore before dawn, his son said.On Thursday Ahsan had been granted a three-day temporary release for the Eid Muslim festival. “Six armed men, including four uniformed police, appeared and dragged him to a waiting police van,” Ali Ahsan said.
Aitzaz Ahsan was returned to house arrest in Lahore. He had been detained under emergency powers that Musharraf invoked on Nov. 3 when he imposed emergency rule in Pakistan. The emergency was lifted on Dec. 15.
With Pakistan counting down to Jan. 8 elections, Musharraf is under international pressure to ensure they are free and fair. Diplomats say the continued detention of Ahsan and other judges and lawyers have harmed the government’s image. “There was tremendous pressure to release him, nationally and externally,” said Ali Ahsan. “But the government got scared after his release when he met with members of the opposition and talked to all the media.”
Ahsan rose to prominence this year when he acted as chief counsel for Iftikhar Chaudhry, the Supreme Court chief justice whom Musharraf tried to sack in March. ChaudhryÂ’s suspension whipped up a campaign against Musharraf by lawyers and opposition activists. That culminated in MusharrafÂ’s declaration of an emergency, when Chaudhry and dozens of other judges seen as hostile to the then army chiefÂ’s October re-election by legislators were purged. Chaudhry and several other judges remain under house arrest.