ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - A British man on death row for 18 years in Pakistan was freed Friday, two days after President Gen. Pervez Musharraf granted him clemency, officials said.

Saeed Hussain, cousin of jailed British national Mirza Tahir Hussain coming out of the Adiala jail in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, Thursday, Nov 16, 2006. [AP]

"He has been released this morning," Pakistan's Interior Minister Aftab Khan Sherpao told The Associated Press.

Mirza Tahir Hussain, who has maintained his innocence for killing a taxi driver, was freed ahead of a weekend visit by British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

Musharraf gave an order Wednesday that Hussain's death sentence should be commuted to life behind bars, Sherpao said.

Under Pakistan's sentencing rules, a life sentence is actually equivalent to 14 years, which means Hussain has served his time, an official from the president's office said on condition of anonymity because of prohibitions on speaking to the media.

Hussain was being held at the high-security Adiala prison in Rawalpindi, near Islamabad.

His whereabouts were not immediately known Friday, but British High Commission officials have been closely following his case and pushing for his release. Diplomats were not immediately available for comment.

Last month, Musharraf granted Hussain a fourth stay of his execution by hanging, postponing it to Dec. 31. But repeated calls for the Briton's release had been rejected until now.

Britain's Prince Charles, who raised Hussain's case with Musharraf during a recent visit to Pakistan, was "very pleased" with the decision, the prince's office at Clarence House said.

Hussain was 18 in 1988 when he traveled to his ancestral home of Pakistan for the first time to visit relatives in the Punjab province town of Chakwal.

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