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Islamabad: Pakistan's deposed chief justice yesterday branded President Pervez Musharraf an "extremist general" for sacking 60 top judges and keeping him and his family under house detention for the past three months.
Iftikhar Chaudhry, who was ousted when Musharraf declared emergency rule late last year, said in a statement his wife and three children - one of them a special needs child - were even forbidden from stepping onto the front lawn of their Islamabad home as it was occupied by police.
"Barbed-wire barricades surround the residence and all phone lines are cut," said the seven-page statement, released by sympathetic lawyers at a press conference in the capital.
Chaudhry, who emerged last year as the main check on the dominance of the US-backed Pakistani leader, accused him of slandering judges during his recent tour of Europe.
Precedent
On his visit, Musharraf during a news conference described Chaudhry as "corrupt and inept". "Is there a precedent in history, all history, of 60 judges including three chief justices [of Pakistani Supreme and two of the High Courts] being dismissed and arrested at the whim of one man?" Chaudhry wrote.
"This incredible outrage has happened in the 21st century at the hands of an extremist general out on a 'charm offensive' of Western capitals and one whom the West supports."
Athar Minallah, senior Supreme Court lawyer who called the news conference, would not disclose how the statement was conveyed from Chaudhry, whose ouster has deepened Musharraf's unpopularity, eight years after he took power in a bloodless military coup.
Incommunicado
Rashid Qureshi, spokesman for Musharraf, said he could comment only after seeing the letter.
Chaudhry's letter was delivered yesterday to the diplomatic missions in Islamabad of the United States, European Union, Britain and France, Minallah said.
In his letter, Chaudhry denied that he engaged in politics by speaking at mass gatherings of lawyers who supported him in March when Musharraf tried unsuccessfully to fire him over corruption allegations.
Chaudhry blamed Musharraf for "squashing the judiciary for his own personal advantage" that has restricted the space for "civilised society".
"That space will, inevitably, be occupied by those who believe in more brutal and instant justice: the extremists in the wings," Chaudhry said.
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