The Hindu : Front Page : Sharif was kidnapped, alleges PML(N) office-bearer

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Tuesday, Sep 11, 2007
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Sharif was kidnapped, alleges PML(N) office-bearer

Nirupama Subramanian

Party consulting legal experts; to file a new petition in Supreme Court

Mr. Sharif talks to the media aboard a Pakistan International Airlines flight from London to Islamabad.

ISLAMABAD: An office-bearer of Nawaz Sharif’s party said on Monday that his leader had been “kidnapped” and that the PML(N) would soon move the Supreme Court to secure his release and return to Pakistan.

Chaudhary Zafar Iqbal, PML (N) additional secretary-general, one of the few leaders of the party who was not arrested in Monday’s crackdown by the government on Opposition leaders, said no one should think that theparty was a spent force after the deportation of Mr. Sharif. “If anyone thinks that we will abandon our political space just because our leader has been sent back to Saudi Arabia, they are mistaken,” he said at a late night press conference.

Mr. Iqbal said the deportation of Mr. Sharif was a “kidnapping” and the party was consulting legal experts and waiting for its leadership to be released before filing any petition in the Supreme Court. Earlier on Monday, soon after Mr. Sharif’s arrival, the party filed a petition asking the Supreme Court to intervene as it feared that he might be deported. It is expected to file a new petition in the coming days. Most of the leaders have been jailed for a month under a law for the maintenance of public order, but are expected to be released sooner than that.

The Pakistan government said on Monday that the former Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif, was flown back to Saudi Arabia in a special aircraft in line with the terms of his “agreement” with the government of Saudi Arabia.

The government says Mr. Sharif agreed to go into exile to Saudia Arabia for 10 years from December 2000; Mr. Sharif disputes this and according to him, the agreement was only for a five-year exile period.

A statement from the government, credited to an unidentified spokesman, said Mr. Sharif was served with a warrant in a corruption case after his arrival in Islamabad.

— PHOTOS: AP, AFP

KEEPING THEM AT BAY: Policemen block supporters of the former Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif who were trying to take out a procession to the Islamabad airport on Monday.

The brief statement was silent on the chain of events between the serving of the warrant and Mr. Sharif’s eventual deportation.

Reacting to Mr. Sharif’s deportation, the Pakistan People’s Party, which is led by his rival Benazir Bhutto, called for the release of PML (N) and other political workers who were arrested ahead of his arrival, but said he had made a deal through a foreign government with President Pervez Musharraf in order to leave the country in 2000.

“In view of this agreement, volunteering to give up his right to live in the country, it is a matter between Mr. Nawaz Sharif, his guarantors and courts of Pakistan,” the PPP statement noted.

The PPP said Mr. Sharif had admitted to “a deal brokered by foreign governments and foreign dignitaries for his benefit with Gen. Musharraf to release and remit the sentence” against him for treason and tax evasion in return for his going into exile, not doing political activity or holding media interviews.

The party is hopeful of reaching an understanding with President Musharraf before his planned presidential election between September 15 and October 15. PPP leader Benazir Bhutto, who lives abroad in self-exile, has said she is talking to the regime in order to ensure a smooth transition to democracy and to ensure free and fair elections with a level-playing field for all political players.

Ms. Bhutto declared recently that irrespective of whether she reaches an agreement with President Musharraf on her demand that he relinquish his army post, and make changes to the Constitution including lifting the bar on a two-time Prime Minister like herself holding the office a third time, she would soon return to Pakistan.

She said the date of her return would be announced on September 14 The PPP statement on Mr. Sharif’s deportation said the party had taken note of the Supreme Court ruling that a citizen had a right to return to the country.

But it also said that unlike Mr. Sharif, the PPP had refused to make any deals with the regime to leave the country, and noted that Ms. Bhutto’s husband, Asif Zardari, who was a member of the senate, spent eight years in jail, and the couple withstood the pressure of politically motivated cases “for the sake of the political, economic, and social rights of the people of Pakistan.”

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