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| India-Pakistan |
| Pak stop US envoy from seeing detained lawyer |
| 2007-12-04 |
| LAHORE - Police stopped US Ambassador Anne Patterson on Monday from meeting Aitzaz Ahsan, a leading Pakistani opposition figure being held under house arrest, a US embassy spokeswoman said. Ahsan, a lawyer and former member of the National Assembly for Benazir Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party, was detained under emergency powers invoked by President Pervez Musharraf on Nov. 3. The former cabinet minister was held at Adiala Jail in Rawalpindi for nearly three weeks before being transferred to house arrest in the eastern city of Lahore and allowed to file nomination papers for a parliamentary election set for Jan. 8. Patterson had requested permission days earlier to meet Ahsan, president of the Supreme Court Bar Association. When the envoy arrived at Ahsan’s home she was barred from seeing him, but was allowed to meet his wife, Bushra, along with several lawyers in another part of the house. ‘The ambassador met Bushra Aitzaz to express concern and repeated US calls for all detainees to be released, including Aitzaz Ahsan,’ Elizabeth Colton, the embassy spokeswoman, said. |
| Posted by:Steve White |