PESHAWAR, March 17: A Nigerian woman was released from central prison here after a two months special remission was granted to her on the directives of Sahba Musharraf, the wife of President Musharraf.

The prisoner Fatima Muhammad, who is in the advance stage of her pregnancy, was recently sentenced to 18 months in prison by the Special Judge Anti-narcotics after she pleaded guilty of her crime - drug-pushing.

The woman was engaged in litigation for declaring herself innocent, but on the advise of her counsel she pleaded guilty to the charge, which she had been declining to accept since her arrest by the Anti-Narcotics Force (ANF) last year.

During the visit of President of Pakistan, General Pervez Musharraf to Peshawar on March 1, he was accompanied by his wife who visited the central prison.

It is learnt that during her chat with women prisoners Ms Musharraf came across Fatima who narrated her ordeal to her. She claimed that she was in fact cheated by her lawyer.

The First Lady looking at her condition directed that she should be granted two months remission.

Her directives were implemented by the Inspector General Prisons. Taking the remission into account her prison term has ended, and was released three days ago.

In one of the two cases against her the concerned court in Haripur district had declared that Fatima was falsely implicated in the case by the Anti-Narcotics Force.

The court also fined the ANF of Rs25,000 for vexatious allegations and directed that the amount be paid to the woman.

On Sept 7, 2001, the court in Haripur acquitted Fatima after preliminary hearing and also took to task the ANF for implicating her in a false case.

The court observed that the passport number of the actual accused Safaralo alias Fatima was 222230 whereas that of Fatima was 022228. After that judgment the ANF booked her in an another case registered in Peshawar.

The ANF was reportedly searching for a woman named Safaralo alias Fatima of Sierra Leon who was charged in different cases and could not be traced.

When the ANF found a woman by the name of Fatima they arrested her despite the fact that neither the country of origin of the two women was the same nor their passport numbers were identical.

Before the trial court in Peshawar, her counsel asked her to plead guilty, claiming that the court would adopt a lenient view towards her and would only award her imprisonment for the period she had already been in prison.

Fatima claimed that although she was innocent, she had to confess a crime which she had not committed just to get out of the prison.

If she had not been helped by the president’s wife she would have given birth to her child in prison.