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Sharif’s party moves apex court for redress

ISLAMABAD: A day after the Pakistan government thwarted the former Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif’s return to lead a battle to oust President Pervez Musharraf by sending him back into exile in Saudi Arabia, his party, the Pakistan Muslim League (N) moved the Supreme Court for redress.

It appears that Mr. Sharif’s hopes are pinned more on the newly independent judiciary than his party’s ability to mobilise public pressure against his deportation.

A strike call by the party and its allies who are grouped in the All Parties Democracy Movement was a failure. There were a few processions and rallies in some cities but the party was unable to bring out significant numbers of people to voice protest.

However, a strike by lawyers to protest the killing of a lawyer in Karachi and the deportation of Mr. Sharif despite a Supreme Court order enabling his return was total and paralysed courts country-wide.

All eyes are now on the possible return of Mr. Sharif’s wife Khulsoom to provide leadership to the PML (N), which has been visibly demoralised by Monday’s events. She has declared her intention to arrive in Pakistan on September 20.

The party filed a petition in the Supreme Court alleging the government had committed contempt of court by deporting Mr. Sharif and demanded that he be produced in court immediately.

Speaking to journalists outside the court, Hamza Sharif, son of Shahbaz Sharif, said it was a “blatant lie” that his uncle Nawaz had gone to Saudi Arabia out of his own free will.

Several top-ranking government and ruling party functionaries have been saying Mr. Sharif chose to leave the country.

Mr. Aziz said in a television interview that the government had presented Mr. Sharif with two choices, exile to Saudi Arabia or jail in Pakistan. Mr. Aziz did not specify Mr. Sharif’s choice, but he said the government did not force him to return.

Attorney-General Malik Qayuum also said Mr. Sharif was given the choice of imprisonment in Attock Fort jail or Saudi Arabia to complete the terms of his 2000 exile agreement.

But statements by ruling Pakistan Muslim League (Q) leader Chaudhary Shujat Hussain did not make it seem like a choice. He first said on a television programme that it became obligatory for the government to send the PML (N) leader back after the Saudi government intervened to remind Mr. Sharif of his agreement to stay away from Pakistan for 10 years.

As commentators questioned the implications of this for the sovereignty of Pakistan, the Saudi Ambassador here emphatically denied playing any role in the deportation.

On Tuesday, Mr. Hussain had to issue a clarification that it was not the Saudi government that had demanded Mr. Sharif’s deportation but the Pakistan government that made the decision “to abide by the agreement and to fulfill moral duty, Nawaz Sharif should be sent to Saudi Arabia”.

The Dawn newspaper accused the government of “deception” for tricking Mr. Sharif into believing he was going to be arrested, with the aim of separating him from the crowd of party workers and international journalists accom panying him, and then packing him off to Saudia Arabia.

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