By Muhammad Najeeb, IANS
Islamabad : Former prime minister Nawaz Sharif was Monday dramatically deported to Saudi Arabia just four hours after he had landed in Pakistan after seven years in exile, hoping to campaign against the country’s US-allied military ruler Pervez Musharraf.
Confirming this, ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q) chief Shujaat Hussain told IANS that Sharif was allowed to land in the country and deported after he agreed “to go to Saudi Arabia instead of a jail.”
The Supreme Court that had last month permitted Sharif to return was petitioned against the arrest and ordered the former prime minister to be produced before it. By then, however, the plane carrying Sharif to Saudi Arabia had already taken off.
Hussain said Sharif was given two options: to either go to jail return to Saudi Arabia where he was sent in 2000 under an agreement with the government to stay away from Pakistan for 10 years.
Sharif contested the duration of the agreement and said it was for five years only.
Sharif’s plane landed here at about 8.45 in the morning. The same plane with Sharif on board took off for Saudi Arabia at 12.55 p.m. Reliable sources said that two Saudi Arabian nationals and some officials of a Pakistani intelligence agency are also travelling with Sharif.
Earlier, three unnamed Saudi officials and seven Pakistanis went into the plane after it landed and tried to convince Sharif to back to London but he refused. Instead, he insisted on clearing immigration and going out of the airport.
According to sources, he was initially given two options: to either go to jail or go back to London but he preferred to go jail.
After clearing immigration and after three hours of consultations in the VIP lounge of the airport, Sharif, his entourage and the media persons who had accompanied him from London were told that the former prime minister would be shifted to the nearby Murree hill station and would be kept in government custody.
Sharif agreed to this, the sources said.
Police then led Sharif away from the VIP lounge after serving a warrant on him. He next boarded a military helicopter that apparently flew toward Murree while the rest of Sharif’s party left the airport.
However, after 20 minutes, the chopper returned to the Islamabad airport and Sharif was shifted to the aircraft that flew him to Saudi Arabia.
“We were under the impression that our leader is being shifted to the Governor’s House in Murree that would be declared a sub-jail. Now we have come to know that he has been flown to Saudi Arabia,” a PML-N worker said.
Earlier, the government said that Sharif had been arrested on corruption charges. Azhar Mahmood Qazi, a senior investigator of National Accountability Bureau (NAB) who served the warrant, said Sharif had been held on money-laundering and corruption charges related to a sugar mill that went bust several years ago.
Sharif was accused of laundering Rs.1.2 billion, Qazi said.
Online news agency adds: Police on Monday arrested leading leaders of Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N) and clashed with others on blocked roads leading to Islamabad airport ahead of Sharif’s arrival.
Early on Monday, the Islamabad Capital Territory Administration blocked all the ways leading to the airport and to Rawalpindi by erecting fences, installing barricades and parking trucks across the roads.
Heavy contingents of Federal Police and Elite Forces had been deployed on the main highways to prevent any untoward incidents.
“I cannot allow you to cross…as I am not empowered to do so. The authorities are monitoring the situation,” said area magistrate Raja Akbar Hayat when asked by PML-N secretary general Zafar Iqbal Jhagra why he was being stopped.
Tear gas and baton charges were used to disperse processions of workers of the PML-N and other opposition parties and lawyer’s associations who tried to approach the airport.
Several people were reportedly injured on the streets of Islamabad’s twin city of Rawalpindi, where demonstrators pelted police with stones.