Freed Islamist says Pak govt can't gag him

Hafez Mohammad Saeed was released late Tuesday on the orders of a high court judge in the eastern city of Lahore after spending nearly three months interned by Pakistani authorities.

Supporters chanted "God is great" after Saeed left a guest house where he had been held in Sehkhupura, near Lahore, said Yahya Mujahid, a spokesman for his controversial new Islamic charity Jamaat-ud-Dawa.

"Authorities have released Hafez Saeed from a rest house which was declared a sub-jail," spokesman Mujahid said, adding that Saeed reached his home in Lahore yesterday.

"He is in good health and fasting (for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan) and told the people gathered to welcome him that he was well and in high spirits," he added.

He quoted Saeed as telling supporters immediately after his release: "Detention and arrest cannot stop me from spreading the message of Allah."

Saeed was placed under house arrest in Lahore on August 9, shortly after Indian officials said Lashkar-e-Taiba had suspected links with July's serial train blasts in Mumbai, which killed 186 people.