Jail officials receive Musharraf's release orders

ISLAMABAD: Former president Pervez Musharraf Wednesday submitted two surety bonds of Rs100,000, two days after a court granted his bail in Lal Masjid cleric Abdul Rasheed Ghazi murder case, Geo News reported.

Jail officials have received Musharraf's release orders and the former president is expected to be released later today.

Islamabad Additional District and Sessions Judge, Wajid Ali on Monday accepted bail application of Pervez Musharraf on two surety bonds of Rs100,000 each in the fourth case which he has been facing after his return to Pakistan in March this year.

Musharraf's name is currently on the interior ministry’s “exit control list,” which means he cannot leave the country without the approval of the government.

The former president was arrested last month in the murder case of Abdul Rasheed Ghazi and his mother Sahib Khatoon. They were killed during an operation on the mosque in 2007.

His arrest in the case came five weeks after Ghazi’s son Haroon Rasheed registered the murder charge against him with Aabpara police in Rawalpindi. His arrest had come just a day after he was given bail in the last of three major cases against him dating back to his 1999-2008 rule.

The former president returned to Pakistan in March to run in the May general election, vowing to “save” the country from economic collapse and militancy.

But he was barred from contesting the election, won convincingly by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif — the man he ousted from power in 1999 — and was hit with a series of criminal cases dating back to his rule.

The Taliban have threatened to kill Musharraf, who as president allied Pakistan with Washington in the US “war on terror” in the wake of the Sept 11 attacks.