Angry lawyers chant slogans against Pakistan's former president as he appears in court.

Accused of illegally detaining judges during a 2007 showdown with the judiciary, Pervez Musharraf himself is now in custody.

After fleeing an Islamabad courtroom Thursday, the former military leader turned himself in.

A judge on Friday ordered him placed under house arrest at his farmhouse for two days until an anti-terrorism court hears his case.

The former paratrooper who seized power in a 1999 coup and resigned in 2008 has spent four years abroad in self-imposed exile.

He recently returned hoping to run in general elections next month but has since faced a host of legal challenges - including allegations he failed to protect late prime minister Benazir Bhutto from assassination.

The arrest of the man who embodied the army's control of Pakistan was surprising in a country where civilian governments rarely question the military and some say is symbolic of a power