LONDON: Former prime minister Nawaz Sharif on Wednesday said he would return to Pakistan this week despite being sentenced in absentia to 10 years in prison by a corruption court there.
"Despite seeing the bars of prison in front of my eyes, I am going to Pakistan," he told a conference of his Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) party in London.
"Put Nawaz Sharif in prison for life, send him to the gallows but you will have to answer the questions that the people of Pakistan are asking and they will stop only after getting answers," he said to cheering from supporters.
Sharif also alluded to the power of Pakistan's security establishment, saying: "There was a time when we used to say a state within a state, now it's a state above the state".
At the conference, held in the ballroom of the Grosvenor House hotel in central London's plush Mayfair district, one man held a placard reading: "Leave democracy alone".
Attendees chanted "Nawaz Sharif, We Love You!" as he concluded his speech.
Sharif was sentenced by a court in Islamabad last week over the purchase of high-end properties in London.
He was ousted from his third term as prime minister by the Supreme Court last year following a corruption investigation and banned from politics for life but remains a powerful symbol for his ruling party.
Usman Khan, PML-N's coordinator in Britain, told AFP that Sharif's case "was manipulated by the judiciary and the establishment in Pakistan".
Khan said Sharif would leave London on Thursday and arrive in Lahore in Pakistan at around 0600 or 0700 GMT.
"We are expecting a large crowd to welcome him," he said.
Khan said he hoped Sharif would be allowed to speak to his supporters in Pakistan "before he surrenders himself to the authorities".
Ex-PM Sharif heading back to Pakistan despite sentence
Ex-PM Sharif heading back to Pakistan despite sentence
- Sharif was sentenced by a court in Islamabad last week over the purchase of high-end properties in London
UK child killer Ian Huntley dies after prison attack: police
- Huntley murdered 10-year-old girls Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman in eastern England in 2002
- He suffered serious injuries when he was assaulted at Frankland maximum security prison in the northeastern English city of Durham on Feb. 26
LONDON: One of Britain’s most notorious child killers, Ian Huntley, died on Saturday following an attack in prison where he was serving a life sentence, police said.
Huntley murdered 10-year-old girls Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman in eastern England in 2002, in a case that horrified the country.
Fifty-two-year-old Huntley suffered serious injuries when he was assaulted at Frankland maximum security prison in the northeastern English city of Durham on Feb. 26.
He “died in hospital this morning,” a spokesperson for the local police force said in a statement emailed to AFP.
A spokesperson for the government’s justice ministry said the double murder of Holly and Jessica “remains one of the most shocking and devastating cases in our nation’s history, and our thoughts are with their families.”
Huntley killed the two best friends after they left a family barbecue to buy sweets in the village of Soham, Cambridgeshire, on Aug. 4 2002.
Their disappearance sparked a massive search involving hundreds of police officers and appeals for help.
A photograph of the two girls wearing matching Manchester United football tops became instantly recognizable to many Britons.
Their bodies were found almost two weeks later, dumped in a ditch several miles away.
Huntley, then a 28-year-old school caretaker, aroused the suspicion of police after he gave media interviews claiming to be concerned for the girls’ welfare.
He denied murdering them but was convicted at trial in 2003.
His girlfriend at the time, Maxine Carr a teaching assistant at the girls’ school, gave Huntley a false alibi and was jailed for perverting the course of justice. She now lives under a new identity.
Revelations that Huntley had been the subject of prior rape and sexual assault complaints led to the establishment of criminal checks for anyone working with children.
He had been attacked before in prison, most seriously in 2005 and 2010.
“A police investigation into the circumstances of the incident is ongoing,” the spokesperson said, adding that prosecutors would consider bringing charges against his assailant.
