ISLAMABAD Pakistan late Thursday freed on bail the deposed chief cleric of Islamabad's radical Red Mosque nearly two years after he was captured during a bloody siege, his lawyer said.Hardliner Maulana Abdul Aziz, who called for Islamic law in Pakistan's capital Islamabad, was a brother of the main figurehead for radical militants holed up in the mosque during the deadly July 2007 government siege.Pakistan's Supreme Court had Wednesday granted bail to Aziz on a surety bond worth 200,000 rupees (2,500 US dollars).‘We submitted a surety bond on the Supreme Court's order. The bond was accepted by the authorities,’ Aziz's lawyer Shaukat Siddiqui told AFP.‘The release orders were then conveyed to police outside his house. Police have been withdrawn from his residence. He's a free man now,’ he added.Television footage showed Aziz sitting in a jeep being driven away from his residence where he had been detained in the garrison city of Rawalpindi and sympathisers said he was en route to the Red Mosque to give thanks.The last time he was at the mosque he was captured trying to flee the building disguised in a woman's burka.‘Maulana is on his way to the mosque. We welcome his release. He will offer prayers here and tomorrow he will lead the Friday prayers at the Red Mosque,’said Mufti Amir Azam, an official for hardline party Jamaat Ulema Islam.Around 50 burka-clad women students gathered outside the mosque, carrying baskets of fresh rose petals ready to shower Aziz in congratulations.
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