ISLAMABAD, Nov 20: The president of the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA), Barrister Aitzaz Ahsan, who has been kept in solitary confinement in the Adiala Jail, Rawalpindi, was ordered to be shifted to the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims), Islamabad, but he refused, saying the treatment available to other prisoners in the jail was adequate for him.

According to his daughter, Saman Aitzaz, who met him at the Adiala Jail on Tuesday, he insisted that his arrest and continued detention was illegal and unlawful.

Mr Ahsan, who was the lead counsel for the Justice (retired) Wajihuddin Ahmad, who had challenged the election of Gen Pervez Musharraf, was the first lawyer to be arrested from Islamabad during a press conference that he was holding in his office on Nov 3, when the emergency was imposed. He was also the lead counsel for Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, when he was removed from his office in March.