ISLAMABAD — A defense lawyer says a court has granted bail to Pakistan's former military ruler Pervez Musharraf in a case involving his allegedly unconstitutional 2007 decision to fire senior judges.

But Malik Qamar Afzal says that despite Tuesday's court ruling, Musharraf must stay under house arrest due to another case against him, which relates to the 2006 killing of an ethnic Baluch nationalist leader.

He says Musharraf, who ruled Pakistan for about eight years after staging a 1999 military coup, will be a free man if he gets bail in connection with that case.

The retired general was arrested in April, weeks after he returned to Pakistan after four years in self-imposed exile. He'd hoped to make a political comeback, but authorities did not let him contest May 11 elections.