Pakistan court grants ex-PM Nawaz Sharif protection from arrest ahead of return from voluntary exile
Former Pakistan prime minister convicted on corruption charges in 2018
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Your support makes all the difference.The Islamabad High Court on Thursday granted Pakistan’s former prime minister Nawaz Sharif protection from arrest days ahead of his return to the country from self-exile.
His lawyer Azam Nazeer Tarar told the media that Sharif had been granted protective bail, which meant that authorities would not be able to arrest him now until he himself appeared before the court on 24 October.
Sharif was convicted on corruption charges in 2018.
According to the petition, Sharif was seeking protective bail in order to surrender before the court and “submit to due process of justice and avail remedies permissible under the law”.
The judge fixed the hearing for 24 October and suspended warrants until then. However, the judge warned that the arrest warrants against the former PM shall be restored if he failed to appear.
The 73-year-old, leader found guilty in the Avenfield and Al-Azizia trials and proclaimed a fugitive in the ongoing Toshakhana vehicle case, remains under the scrutiny of an accountability court in Islamabad. Sharif had been granted bail in these cases when he departed for the United Kingdom in 2019 for medical care.
The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz [PML-N] leader is scheduled to return to Pakistan on 21 October, ending his four-year-long self-imposed exile in the UK.
The petition for temporary bail mentioned that Sharif had not fully recovered and was not in an “ideal state of health”, but he was returning when the country was facing the “worst-ever crises of the economy and other fronts”.
Sharif stepped down from his position as Pakistan’s prime minister in 2017 when the Supreme Court disqualified him from ever holding public office due to his failure to declare a receivable salary. Since 2019, he has resided in London, having received a four-week permit from the Lahore High Court, allowing him to travel abroad for medical treatment.
Before his departure to London, Sharif was serving a seven-year prison sentence at Lahore’s Kot Lakhpat jail in connection with the Al-Azizia Mills case, and he was granted leave to travel to London on the basis of “medical grounds”.
Last month, PML-N president Shehbaz Sharif officially announced that his older brother Nawaz Sharif would be making his way back to Pakistan on 21 October to lead the party’s campaign for the upcoming general election.
Shehbaz Sharif was prime minister from 2022 until this year, when his government was replaced by a caretaker administration upon the dissolution of parliament in advance of a general election due early next year.
Additional reporting by agencies
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