Pakistan's deposed judge gets hero's welcome on tour

Pakistan's deposed chief justice Iftikhar Chaudhry holds flowers given by his supporters outside his residence in Islamabad March 31, 2008.

QUETTA, Pakistan (Reuters) - Pakistan's deposed top judge who has became a focus for opposition to President Pervez Musharraf got a hero's welcome in his hometown of Quetta on Monday at the beginning of a tour of the country to meet lawyers.

Former Supreme Court chief justice Iftikhar Chaudhry and nine colleagues were freed from nearly five months of house arrest last week on the orders of new Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani.

"I'm happy coming home after 18 months. Quetta is my home town," Chaudhry told Reuters as he got off a flight from the capital, Islamabad, in the southwestern city.

Chaudhry and dozens of his colleagues seen as hostile to former army chief Musharraf's re-election as president in October were dismissed in early November when Musharraf imposed a six-week period of emergency rule.

Chaudhry was detained at his home in Islamabad until last week.

The opposition parties of assassinated former prime minister Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif dealt allies of the unpopular Musharraf a stunning defeat in February 18 parliamentary elections and are setting up a coalition government led by Gilani.

Leaders of the two parties, Bhutto's widower Asif Ali Zardari and Sharif, have promised to reinstate Chaudhry and his colleagues through a parliamentary resolution within 30 days of forming a government.

But that is likely to trigger a show-down between the new government and the president, who will be worried the judges, if reinstated, would take up legal challenges to him that could see his October re-election ruled unconstitutional.

"GO MUSHARRAF"

About 500 political activists waving party flags and black-suited lawyers thronged Quetta's small airport shouting "long live the chief justice" and "Go Musharraf, go".

They showered Chaudhry with rose petals as he came out of the airport terminal.

More supporters were waiting outside the airport.

Security was tight with police, including members of an anti-terrorist force, armed with automatic rifles standing by and at least three armored personnel carriers at the airport.

Aitzaz Ahsan, a fierce critic of Musharraf and Chaudhry's main lawyer, said Chaudhry's supporters would not organize protests to press for Chaudhry's reinstatement but would wait for the government to keep its promise to reappoint the judges.

"If the judges are restored within 30 days then the movement will obviously end. But if not, this movement will continue," said Ahsan who accompanied Chaudhry with about two dozen other supporters on his trip to Quetta.

Chaudhry plans to tour the country to meet lawyers over the next month.

Musharraf first suspended Chaudhry over accusations of misconduct on March 9 last year, infuriating the judiciary and opposition parties and triggering weeks of protests.

The Supreme Court reinstated Chaudhry in July but Musharraf fired him and like-minded colleagues in November.

Sharif, the prime minister Musharraf ousted in 1999, has been most forceful in demanding the restoration of the judges, in the belief, analysts say, that if they got their jobs back the judges would eventually rule Musharraf's presidency unlawful.

Bhutto's party has been less adamant, partly because, analysts say, Chaudhry had taken up a challenge to an ordinance Musharraf introduced in October erasing corruption charges against Bhutto, Zardari and others as part of a proposed power-sharing deal.

(Writing by Robert Birsel;Editing by Sanjeev Miglani)

(For a Reuters blog about Pakistan please see blogs.reuters.com/pakistan )