Pakistani cleric charged

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Aug. 3 (UPI) -- A variety of charges have been filed against a Pakistani cleric who helped negotiate a truce between his provincial government and the Taliban, officials said.

The charges -- filed Sunday by the government in the violence-hit North-West Frontier Province against Maulana Sufi Mohammad, father-in-law of Swat Valley Taliban leader Maulana Fazlullah -- included sedition and rioting, Dawn newspaper reported. Several others were charged as well.

A police official was quoted as saying Sufi Mohammad was accused of instigating people in speeches at public meetings to rise up against the state. He was arrested last month along with his two sons in the provincial capital of Peshawar.

Sufi Mohammad had been accused of leading an insurgency in the region's Malakand area before he entered into a peace agreement, Dawn said. Under the agreement reached in February, Sharia law was imposed in the Swat Valley in return for Taliban stopping their violence in the area.

The agreement, however, failed to hold, leading to the military's three-month long campaign against the Taliban. After the failed agreement, the Dawn report said Sufi Mohammad was accused of starting a campaign in which he spoke against the constitution and democracy.