By NNN-PTI
Islamabad : Pakistan government and Nawaz Sharif’s party clashed Tuesday over the circumstances behind his deportation with a Minister claiming he chose to leave to avoid prosecution while a party leader said the former premier had in fact “offered his wrists”.
Pakistan’s deputy information minister Tariq Azim said Sharif chose to go back into exile to avoid being detained and standing trial. Sharif was flown to Saudi Arabia amid high drama within hours after he landed in Islamabad Monday from a seven-year exile.
Giving a new twist to Sharif drama, Azim in an interview to BBC denied that Sharif had been deported, saying he chose to leave Pakistan to avoid prosecution on corruption charges.
“It was a choice given to him that either he goes to a detention centre and be detained and tried, or he goes and completes his 10-year (exile) agreement that he has signed with the Saudi government,” Azim said.
“We have not deported him,” Azim said. “He has been returned to Saudi Arabia to stand out the rest of the three years that he had agreed to spend outside.”
Azim also said the government did not block Sharif from entering the country. “No hindrance or obstacle was placed upon his entry into Pakistan. He came here and he was given every assistance,” Azim said.
He said the government has obeyed the Supreme Court ruling in this regard.
In Islamabad, Azim’s claims were countered by Sadiq ul-Farooq of Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League-N party calling them a “baseless concoction” and that he had volunteered to be arrested by police at Islamabad airport after he was served a warrant.
“He offered his wrists to them,” ul-Farooq said.
Attorney General Malik Muhammad Qayyum said Tuesday that former prime minister Nawaz Sharif left the country for Saudi Arabia on his own choice and not by force.
Talking to media representatives in his office, he said Nawaz Sharif was given two options by the government at the Islamabad International Airport Islamabad after the immigration process—whether he would like to go to Attock jail or to Saudi Arabia as per his exile agreement.
Responding to a question about contempt of court, Malik Muhammad Qayyum said that the government had sent Nawaz Sharif to Saudi Arabia as per the exile agreement.
No contempt of court was committed by the government by sending the former Prime Minister to Saudi Arabia as he was allowed to enter the country in accordance with the order passed by the apex court on Aug 23, the Attorney General said.
The government did every thing according to the provisions of the Constitution and the law and there was no question of violation of the Supreme Court verdict, he said.
To a question, the Attorney General said that the government “always takes him into confidence in all the constitutional and legal matters”.
Meanwhile, China, describing the deportation of Sharif as Pakistan’s “internal affair”, Tuesday hoped the neighbouring country would maintain social stability and economic development.
“This is the internal affair of Pakistan,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Jiang Yu, said when asked to comment on the volatile political situation in Pakistan following Sharif’s return and subsequent deportation to Saudi Arabia Monday.
“We believe that Pakistani government can continue to maintain social stability and economic development,” she said in a brief response at a regular biweekly news briefing.
He remarks came as the US, in its reaction, Monday said the deportation of Sharif was contrary to the ruling by Pakistan’s Supreme Court, which had allowed him to return home after a seven-year exile, but insisted it was for Islamabad to resolve its internal matter.