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Gilani elected as Pakistan PM

Sacked judges released; court clears Zardari of judge murder charge

Al P, AP Islamabad/Karachi
Pakistan's parliament Monday elected a staunch aide of slain opposition leader Benazir Bhutto as the country's new prime minister, setting up a showdown with US ally President Pervez Musharraf.
Yousuf Raza Gilani, a former parliament speaker who spent five years in jail under Musharrafs regime, won the position as expected with a big majority from Bhutto's party and its allies in the incoming coalition government.
Ai’ reported from Islamabad in early morning that Pakistan's state-run news agency was quoting a senior Islamabad administrator as saying that all judges detained under the government of President Pervez Musharraf were already free.
His announcement came after newly elected Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani told parliament he wanted the judges released immediately.
The report quoted deputy Islamabad commissioner Amir Ahmed All as saying "the order of the prime minister has been imple-
mented and all deposed judges are free to move."
President Pervez Musharraf fired 60 judges in November under a state of emergency.
MPs chanted "Long Live Bhutto!’ and "Go, Musharraf, Go!" as the election result was announced. Benazir Bhutto's
teenage son Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, sitting in the public gallery, wiped away tears and then shook hands with Gilani.
"Today, democracy has been restored thanks to the great sacrifice of Benazir Bhuno," the 55-year-old Gilani, wearing a dark suit and tie, said in his first speech to parliament.
"I invite all political forces to join us because the country is facing such a crisis that a single man cannot save it, "he said.
Just after his election Gilani on Monday ordered the release of all judges detained after President Pervez Musharraf imposed emergency rule last year.
"I order all the detained judges to be released immediately," Gilani, a key aide of slain opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, told parliament just moments after the national assembly voted him in as premier.
Pakistan police Monday started removing barbed wire outside the house of the country’s deposed top judge following the order, an AFP photographerwimessed.
Musharraf sacked dozens of judges in November, fearing they could overturn his victory in a presidential election. Some, including former Supreme Court chief justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, remain in detention.
Gilani won 264 votes in the 342-seat lower house of parliament, while pro-Musharraf candidate Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi secured 42 votes. There were several abstentions.
Musharraf, who seized power in a military coup in 1999, is set to swear in the new prime minister on Tuesday.
Benazir Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party (PPP) emerged as the biggest party from the February 18 vote and formed a coalition with the party of former premier Nawaz Sharif and two smaller groupings after routing Musharraf sallies.
Benazir Bhutto was assassinated in a suicide attack at an election rally in December.
The coalition is headed for a confrontation with Musharraf after vowing to reinstate sacked judges who could challenge the president's grip on power.
Musharraf deposed the chief justice and dozens of other judges under a state of emergency in November, when it looked like the Supreme Court might overturn his October re-election as president
"If we have to make tins country successful then we will have to make parliament supreme, we will have to
respect the constitution and uphold the rule oflaw," Gilani said.
A senior member of Sharif s party said earlier that several of the judges who remain under detention, including former Supreme Court chief justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry', would be free as soon as Gilani is sworn in.
Gilani himself was in prison for half a decade on corruption charges, which he said were cooked up by’ Musharraf s regime to discredit him. His spell in prison won him respect within the PPP's ranks.
The charges dated from his time as speaker during Bhutto's second term in power from 1993 to 1996. He was also a minister during her first term from 1988 to 1990.
There is speculation that Gilani will be a stop-gap premier until Benazir Bhutto's widower Asif Ali Zardari, who is not an MR becomes eligible to stand for the post by contestingaby-election in May.
But local daily The News quoted Zardari as denying this, saying that he is not interested in the job and that Gilani would be prime minister "for five years and not for three months."
A Pakistani court earlier Monday' acquitted Zardari of involvement in the 1996 murder of a retired judge, his lawyer said, the latest in a string of cases against him that have been dropped in thepast month.
The case was the latest in a string of charges against Asif Ali Zardari that have been dropped by courts since Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party won general elections last month.
"The court acquitted Zardari as there was no evidence against him,' his lawyer. Shahadat Awan, told AFP after the hearing in the southern city ofKarachi.
Zardari was charged wi th in vol ve -ment in the killing of retired high court judge Nizam Ahmed and his son Nadeem Ahmed, a lawyer, 12 yearsago in Karachi.
Public prosecutor Naimat Randhawa said that the investigation failed to produce any evidence against Zardari.
Musharraf on Sunday pledged his full support to the new coalition, hailing the start of what he called a "real democratic era" in the country, which has been plagued for months by violence linked to al-Qaeda and Taliban militants.
In the latest militant attack in the nuclear-armed nation. 100 people were injured when insurgents in a border town blew up 36 tankers supplying fuel to US and Nato troops in neighbouring Afghanistan.