Court allows children to visit Zardari in jail

A Rawalpindi court has allowed Asif Zardari, husband of Pakistan's former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, to allow his children to visit and perhaps even stay with him in jail during the summer vacations.

His son Bilawal, and two daughters, Bakhtawar and Asifa, will be coming to Pakistan soon to be with their father, family sources said.

Sources close to Zardari say this is a long awaited family reunion after an agonising five-and a half years' separation.

Zardari, a former parliamentarian and cabinet minister, was taken prisoner immediately after Benazir was removed from office for the second time in November 1996. Since then he has been in jail, and has rarely had the chance to see his wife or children.

Benazir went into exile in April 1998. Family members recall that Zardari had made only one request to army officers when they came to arrest him from the governor's house in Lahore on the night of November 4 and 5 in 1996. He requested them to let him have a meeting with his children.

The request was denied and Zardari was taken to Lahore Fort where he was kept in army custody for a couple of weeks before being handed over to the civilian administration.

His lawyers said Zardari had made a request to the Lahore High Court judges dealing with accountability cases to spend time with his children. The two judges, Saeed Akhtar and Akhtar Bashir, sent the case to the chief justice for action.

Arguing his case before the Rawalpindi judge, Aslam Khan, Zardari pointed out that if children can live with mothers in jail, there was no reason why they cannot live with their fathers.

The prosecutor general objected on the grounds of security, but Zardari held out an assurance that there would be no problem of security. The court granted his request.

On a number of occasions, Zardari has reportedly been offered a deal for freedom in return for exile, which he has turned down saying that he was loyal to his country and would prefer to live and die in the land of his forefathers.