Interior minister Rehman Malik believed to be on exit control list drawn up after court ends legal amnesty

Asif Ali Zardari: The Pakistani president’s government is under pressure after supreme court ended legal amnesty. Photograph: John Moore/Getty Images

Pakistan‘s interior minister today found himself in the unusual position of being asked to bar himself from leaving the country as the fallout from a supreme court verdict continued to rock President Asif Ali Zardari’s government.

The National Accountability Bureau (NAB), Pakistan’s top anti-corruption agency, said it was reopening hundreds of cases after the court quashed a legal amnesty introduced by the former president Pervez Musharraf two years ago.

Ghazni Khan, the agency’s spokesman, said it had asked the interior ministry to put 248 people on the exit control list, preventing them from leaving the country.

Khan did not give the names, but local television stations, citing official sources, said the interior minister, Rehman Malik, was among them. Malik, who is usually voluble in front of the media, refused to comment on the case.

The agency also said it was reviving arrest warrants in some cases and freezing assets, including bank accounts and property.

The court ruling that struck down the corruption amnesty on Wednesday triggered turmoil in Pakistan’s political system.

Opposition politicians are clamouring for Zardari’s resignation, but he has insisted he will not go. As the president, he enjoys immunity from prosecution.

Rivals said his moral authority had been irretrievably damaged. “He should quit this office in his own interest as well as in the interest of his party and the system,” Khwaja Asif, of the opposition Pakistan Muslim League, said.

Analysts said the country was moving into uncharted territory. “It’s chaos out there. Nobody knows what’s going on. Everyone is trying to work out the ramifications of the court order,” Cyril Almeida, a columnist at the Dawn newspaper, said.

Anti-corruption body bars 248 people from leaving Pakistan

As the political turmoil deepened, a missile strike in the tribal belt underscored the grave militancy problem facing the country.

According to local officials, up to five US drones fired 10 missiles at a house in North Waziristan, raising speculation that a senior al-Qaida figure was being targeted. At least 12 people were killed.

A second drone attack in the same area targeted suspected militants travelling in a car. By late evening, officials could not identify those killed.

Western allies fear the trouble surrounding Zardari will further damage his government’s ability to provide political cover for the politically difficult attacks.

CIA-operated drones have struck 48 times in the past year, killing 400 people, mostly militants, according to a Reuters tally, but they have inflamed anti-US sentiment in a country whose people are already deeply hostile to Washington.

Musharraf introduced the corruption amnesty in 2007, with British and US backing, as part of a political deal allowing Benazir Bhutto to return from exile and contest elections.

Bhutto was assassinated in December 2007 while leaving a political rally and, two months later, her political party came to power, paving the way for Zardari, her widower, to become president last year.

Zardari has been haunted by perceptions of corruption – an NAB official recently told a court he controls assets of $1.5bn (£0.9bn), , many of them outside Pakistan, and in his popularity ratings have plunged to a new low in recent months.

Zardari supporters claim their enemies – including powerful figures in the military – are using the supreme court to undermine his authority and force his resignation.

Although he spent 11 years in prison, he was never convicted. The seven cases still pending are mostly related to bribery allegations.

Analysts said that if the president refuses to resign, his opponents could try to unseat him through a supreme court challenge to the legality of his election. No such action has yet been initiated and its chances of success remain unclear

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• in Islamabad
• , Thursday 17 December 2009 19.50 GMT
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NRO judgment

You can run, but you can’t hide!

ISLAMABAD: Defence Minister Chaudhry Ahmad Mukhtar has been stopped at Islamabad International Airport, sources said.

The Defence Minister was on his way to China with his wife and secretary when he was stopped by airport officials.

Mukhtar has been put on the Exit Control List following the annulment of the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) by the Supreme Court on Wednesday.

The Defence Minister was named among the beneficiaries of the NRO, in which top politicians and bureaucrats were given amnesty from corruption allegations and cases.