LAHORE: Three-time former Prime Minister Mian Nawaz Sharif was moved to the Kot Lakhpat Jail on Tuesday to begin his seven-year jail term in the high-security zone of the prison.
The Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N) supremo was awarded the sentence on charges of corruption and for setting up a steel mill in Saudi Arabia where he and his family had been residing in exile after being removed from office in a bloodless military coup.
Sharif was taken into custody on Monday evening after an accountability court’s judge announced the verdict. He was, however, acquitted in another corruption case filed against him in the same court
It is the second conviction handed down to Sharif in the past six months after he was sentenced to 10 years in jail in the Avenfield London flats corruption case.
His daughter, Maryam Nawaz, was also jailed for seven years in the same case while his son-in-law, Safdar Awan, was jailed for one year. The two are out on bail after the Islamabad High Court ordered their release after suspending the conviction.
Meanwhile, top PML-N leaders termed the convictions as a politically-motivated move to oust Sharif out of the active political arena.
“It is another dark decision against the politicians of Pakistan that will neither be endorsed by the masses nor history. The politicians are being victimized for the last 70 years. The PML-N is avoiding the politics of aggression for the longevity of the parliament and democracy but the system cannot afford such practices anymore,” former Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi told Arab News.
Sharif spent the night at Rawalpindi’s Adiala jail and was flown to Lahore on Tuesday morning after the court accepted his request to be moved to Lahore due to his medical condition.
Sharif suffers from a heart condition and it was easier for his doctors and family members to meet him in Lahore.
“The conviction is baseless as the prosecution did not have any documentary evidence against Nawaz Sharif. They even did not produce a single witness against him (Nawaz). It is a politically motivated decision,” Raja Zafarul Haq, PML-N Chairman, told Arab News.
Sharif has been moved to a high-security zone where he has been given a separate room with a small garden attached.
The Punjab government also approved a request for a ‘better class’ in jail for Sharif making him eligible to get a mattress, a study table and chair, a TV set, and access to newspapers during his stay.
The aircraft which flew in the former premier landed at Lahore airport in the early hours of the day where a special team of law enforcement agencies took him to the Kot Lakhpat Jail amid tight security.
A number of PML-N workers gathered at the PECO Railway Crossing, enroute to the jail, and chanted slogans in favor of their leader.
PML-N legislators and party workers also celebrated Sharif’s birthday on December 25 before leaving the venue.
Jail sources, requesting anonymity, told Arab News that Sharif was taken to a hospital on the premises after being registered as a prisoner. The jail doctor conducted his medical examination before pronouncing him completely fit.
Sharif’s younger brother and PML-N president, Shehbaz Sharif, who is also the Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly, is also behind bars in the same facility.
Authorities have taken tight security measures by setting up a check post on the road leading to the prison where Sharif is lodged.
Nawaz Sharif reaches Lahore to serve jail term
Nawaz Sharif reaches Lahore to serve jail term
- Has been sentenced to seven years rigorous imprisonment in a corruption case
- Conviction is ‘politically-motivated’, ex-PM Abbasi tells Arab News
Four people, including two policemen, killed in twin blasts in northwest Pakistan
- Attack on police van in South Waziristan and motorbike-mounted IED in Lakki Marwat hits KP province
- Violence comes amid a surge in militancy and cross-border clashes between Pakistan and Afghanistan
ISLAMABAD: At least four people, including two policemen, were killed and about 20 others wounded in two separate blasts in Pakistan’s northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on Saturday, officials said, the latest violence in a region grappling with militant violence.
One explosion targeted a police patrol van in Wana, the main town of South Waziristan district near the Afghan border, while another blast caused by explosives mounted on a motorbike struck a market area in Lakki Marwat district, according to police officials and preliminary reports.
The incidents come amid rising militant violence in Pakistan’s northwest, where authorities say armed groups operate from across the border in Afghanistan, straining relations between Islamabad and the Taliban administration in Kabul, with both sides engaged in a military conflict since last month.
“The control room received information in the evening about a bomb blast targeting a police van in Wana Bazaar,” a police official in the area, who did not want to be named, confirmed while speaking to Arab News over the phone.
He confirmed two deaths in the incident while saying more than 25 people had been injured.
The official said rescue teams responded promptly and shifted three seriously injured people to a nearby hospital in Wana.
In another incident during the day in Lakki Marwat, an improvised explosive device attached to a motorbike exploded near shops.
“Two people have been killed and about 10 have been injured in an IED blast in Lakki Marwat,” Raza Khan, Deputy Superintendent of Police in Bannu, told Arab News.
“The deceased are identified as Shoaib Ur Rehman and Furqan Ullah,” he added. “Shoaib, the owner of the shop, was the brother of the Lakki peace committee head.”
Peace committees in the region are informal, community-based groups that work with security forces to report militant activity and maintain order, making their members frequent targets of attacks.
Pakistan’s Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi condemned the attacks and expressed grief over the incidents.
“I strongly condemn the blast near a police patrolling vehicle in Wana Bazaar,” Naqvi said in a statement, confirming the killing of four people, including two police personnel.
“Khyber Pakhtunkhwa police are on the front line in the war against terrorism,” he said, noting the force had made “unforgettable sacrifices” in the fight against militant groups.
Militant violence has surged in Pakistan’s border regions in recent months, particularly in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan provinces.
Islamabad has repeatedly accused the Afghan Taliban government of allowing militant groups, including the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), to operate from Afghan territory — a charge Kabul denies — as cross-border tensions between the two neighbors have escalated.
