Pakistan: Opposition leader freed from prison

Senior Pakistani opposition leader Javed Hashmi was released from prison today and received a rapturous welcome from hundreds of chanting, flag-waving supporters, a day after the Supreme Court granted him bail.

Hashmi, the acting president of the party of exiled former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, was sentenced four years ago to 23 years in prison for treason and inciting an army mutiny against military President General Pervez Musharraf.