Pro-Taliban cleric faces treason charges in Pakistan

ISLAMABAD, Aug. 2 (Xinhua) -- Pakistani authorities have registered treason charges against a top pro-Taliban leader for offering anti-state remarks, officials said on Sunday.

Sufi Muhammad, chief of the banned group "Tehrik Nifaz Shariat-e-Muhammadi" (TNSM), or movement for the enforcement of Islamic system, was arrested last month in the northwestern city of Peshawar.

Muhammad brokered a peace deal with the Pakistani government in February to set up Islamic courts in the Swat valley and several other parts of the North West Frontier Province (NWFP).

But the deal failed as Taliban in Swat refused to give up arms and the authorities said that Muhammad also violated the deal by not asking the Taliban to lay down arms.

The police in Saidu Sharif, the center of Swat, registered the treason case against Muhamamd for making a speech at a public meeting against the state organs in April, an official Sajid Muhmand said.

Treason charges carry death sentence or life term in jail under the Pakistani law, legal experts said.

NWFP Information Minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain said that the government will investigate the role of Muhammad in the violence in the Swat valley.

The government said that Muhammad had earlier announced that he would declare those militants as rebels who do not surrender arms after the introduction of Islamic laws. But he did not honor his commitment.

Muhammad, father-in-law of Maulana Fazalullah, the Swat Taliban chief, has been mysteriously missing since the security forces launched operation against the militants in early May. He appeared in Peshawar on July 26 and was arrested along with his sons.