Pakistan ends house arrest of Benazir Bhutto ahead of US envoy's visit

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
Authorities have lifted the house arrest imposed on opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, police said Friday, hours before the visit of a senior U.S. official expected to ask Pakistan's military leader to end emergency rule. "The government has withdrawn the detention order," Zahid Abbas, a senior police official, told an Associated Press reporter near the barricaded house in the eastern city of Lahore where Bhutto has been confined since Tuesday. "The house is no longer a sub-jail but security will remain for her own protection. She's free to move and anyone will be able to go to the house," Abbas said before dawn.