LAHORE: The Islamabad High Court on Saturday granted medical bail to jailed former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif until Tuesday in a corruption case involving a steel mill for which he is currently serving a seven-year jail sentence, Sharif's lawyer told media.

Sharif had appealed the Al Azizia Steel Mills verdict and denies the charges, alleging that they are politically motivated. On Monday, Sharif was taken to a hospital in the city of Lahore with an alarmingly low platelet count. He has since also been granted bail in a corruption case involving a sugar mill for which he had been remanded in the custody of the National Accountability Bureau for questioning.

“The court has granted interim bail to Mian Nawaz Sharif on humanitarian grounds till Tuesday,” Barrister Zafrullah Khan, a lawyer for Sharif, told media outside the court.

Bail in the Al Azizia case was granted after NAB told the court during Saturday’s hearing that it had “no objections to bail being granted,” Pakistani newspaper Dawn reported.

On Saturday, Sharif’s personal physician said he had suffered a heart attack in hospital.

“His condition is not well,” Sharif’s personal physician Dr. Adnan Khan told Arab News in Lahore on Saturday.

Sharif’s brother Shehbaz Sharif, who is also the president of the Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PMLN), had filed a bail appeal in the Al Azizia case with the Islamabad High Court on Friday. The court had deferred the matter until Tuesday but a miscellaneous application was submitted on Saturday requesting that the case be heard on an urgent basis.

In court, Khawaja Haris, Sharif’s main lawyer, said his client had just suffered a heart attack and his life was in danger. He also presented a copy of Friday’s judgement by the Lahore High Court’s judgment granting Sharif bail in the Chaudhary Sugar Mills case on medical grounds.

On Monday, Dr Mahmood Ayaz, the head of a medical board formed to examine Sharif, told a court Sharif had acute immune thrombocytopenic purpura (ITP), a bleeding disorder that destroys the platelets in the body.

Ayaz told media on Saturday that Sharif’s platelet count had increased since Friday and he was being administered hemoglobin injections continuously.

In a twitter post on Saturday, Sharif’s personal physician said his patient’s clinical status was “extremely & critically unstable putting health & life of Mr. Sharif at risk.”

Since Sharif was taken to hospital on Monday, members of his Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PMLN) party have variously claimed that his health was deteriorating and the government had delayed treatment.

“Mian Nawaz Sharif has been suffering from multiple diseases since long,” senior PMLN leader Pervaiz Rashid told Arab News. “The reports submitted in the courts a few months ago indicated that he was not well but no heed was paid, which aggravated the problem.”

Referring to the sugar mill case for which Sharif, already in jail, has been remanded into the custody of the National Accountability Bureau, Rashid said: “There was no need of taking him into NAB custody as he was already in jail and could not influence the investigations.”

Many in Sharif’s family and party have accused the government of delaying his treatment as part of a campaign against him and his party. The government denies that the legal action against Sharif and other members of his family, including daughter Maryam Nawaz, who is also in detention for suspected graft, is politically motivated.

A representative of the Punjab chief minister said Sharif was being provided the best possible medical care: “Every possible measure is being taken to provide medical facility to Nawaz,” Muhammad Rafiullah said in a text message to reporters.