Pakistani court orders cleric in Mumbai siege freed

ISLAMABAD — The founder of the group India blames for last year's Mumbai siege was ordered freed in a court ruling Tuesday that raised new tensions and drew criticism of Pakistan's commitment to fighting terrorism.

The ruling to end the six-month house arrest of Hafiz Mohammed Saeed comes at a time when Washington and other Western allies would prefer that Pakistan focus on dislodging Taliban militants in the border region with Afghanistan — rather than its rivalry with India.

It also comes as Richard Holbrooke, President Barack Obama's special envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan, was due in Islamabad on Wednesday for talks on the month-old military offensive to drive Taliban militants from the Swat Valley region in the northwest.

In the eastern city of Lahore, a three-judge High Court panel ruled that Saeed, a hardline Islamic cleric detained since a December crackdown in response to the Mumbai attack, could be held no longer because there was no evidence against him, his lawyer A.K. Dogar told reporters.

The court did not immediately make its findings public.

Saeed stayed within the compound of his home near Lahore after the ruling, and it was not clear if there were further formalities to be completed before he could leave. Attorney General Sardar Latif Khosa said the government was considering an appeal, but needed time to study the judgment.

Saeed is the chief of Jamaat-ud-Dawa, an organization he says is a charity to help impoverished and disaster-stricken Pakistanis. The United Nations has designated the group a front for the notorious Lashkar-e-Taiba and says it is a terrorist group in its own right.

India accuses Lashkar of sending the teams of gunmen that rampaged through Mumbai last November in an attack on luxury hotels, a busy train station and other sites. The three-day siege left 166 people dead.

Pakistan banned Lashkar in 2002 during a crackdown on militant groups that followed the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, under pressure from Washington, which considers it a terrorist group.

Saeed set up Lashkar in the 1980s with the blessing of Pakistan's intelligence services, and the group has a long and bloody history of guerrilla warfare and bombings aimed at Indian rule in Kashmir. The neighbors have fought two wars over the Himalayan territory since 1947.

Indian prosecutors say evidence gleaned from the sole survivor among the 10 Mumbai gunmen — Mohammed Ajmal Kasab — supports the claim. Kasab, a Pakistani, is on trial for his life in India.