A Pakistani court Friday sentenced
ousted Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to 10 years in prison for corrupt
practices linked to his family’s purchase of upscale London flats, in a
major blow to his party ahead of the general election on July 25.
The guilty verdict in absentia against
Sharif, 68, threatens to end the career of one of Pakistan’s most
high-profile politicians of the last four decades, a political survivor
who was prime minister three times.
A political ally said Sharif would
return to Pakistan from London to file an appeal, facing arrest on
arrival just before the election, in which his party is in a close race
with opposition figure Imran Khan’s party.
“Today’s verdict shows that these
Avenfield apartments were purchased using corruption money,” prosecution
lawyer Sardar Muzaffar Abbasi told reporters, citing the name of the
apartment building in London.
Sharif’s daughter, Maryam, widely seen
as his chosen political heir, was sentenced to seven years in prison.
Maryam’s husband and PML-N lawmaker Muhammad Safdar was handed a year in
jail, he said.
The conviction means Maryam Sharif will be disqualified from contesting the elections.
“The people of Pakistan and PML-N reject
this decision,” said Sharif’s brother Shehbaz, who took over as PML-N
president after his brother was banned from holding office for life, and
is expected to be its prime ministerial candidate.
“This decision is based on injustice.”
Sharif and his daughter were in London
on Friday with Sharif’s wife, Kulsoom, who is being treated for cancer
and is in a coma after suffering a heart attack last month.
Both denied wrongdoing and will appeal
the decision, said Sharif ally Tariq Fazal Chaudhry, adding that the
former premier would return to Pakistan before the election.
The NAB court ordered Sharif to pay a
fine of £8 million ($10.6 million) and fined Maryam £2 million, while
ordering the confiscation of the London properties on behalf of the
Pakistani government, Abbasi said.
If Sharif returns he will be arrested on
arrival under the law, though he could later be freed by a separate
court pending appeal, Abbasi added.
The National Accountability Bureau (NAB)
court accused Sharif and his family of money laundering and being
unable to legitimately show the money trail for the purchase of several
luxurious properties in London, mostly in the mid-1990s.
A copy of the verdict said the Sharif
family had failed to prove a legal source of income for the purchase of
Avenfield apartments in 1993, 1995 and 1996.
Sharif was ousted by the Supreme Court
in July 2017 and barred from politics for being “dishonest” by failing
to report a monthly income of 10,000 Emirati dirhams ($2,723) from a
company owned by his son. He denies drawing the monthly salary.
But he has kept de facto control of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) party that he founded.
The decision comes at a time of growing
suspicion of military meddling in politics ahead of the polls, as well
as media complaints of being muzzled.
Sharif had denounced the court
proceedings against him as politically motivated and a judicial
witch-hunt, often suggesting the military was to blame.
“Justice has been massacred,” Maryam’s husband Safdar said after the verdict.
Pakistan’s military, which has ruled the
nuclear-armed country for almost half its history, denies involvement
in civilian politics. But the military ended Sharif’s second stint in
power in 1999 in a bloodless coup.(NAN)
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