Sharifs to approach Pak SC if arrested on return

Former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and other members of his family would certainly challenge their arrest and would preferably approach the Supreme Court for relief, sources said.

Islamabad, Aug 25 : Former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and other members of his family would certainly challenge their arrest and would preferably approach the Supreme Court for relief, sources said.

Attorney-General Malik Qayyum said it would be a unique case in the sense that such a matter has never come before the superior courts of Pakistan for adjudication.

Sharif might be arrested on his return to Pakistan in cases pending against him, or on account of two convictions, imposed by the courts during his presence in the country, a senior official said.

Three of the corruption cases pending disposal in an accountability court of Rawalpindi, have been drawn out of the record room and proceedings initiated on them on a plea of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB).

They were made dormant after the Sharif clan's departure from Pakistan in December 2000.

The elaborate NAB investigations, launched immediately after General Pervez Musharraf's October 1999 take over, had framed more than two dozens cases against the Sharifs.

Some of them were filed with the accountability courts while others were in the pipeline to be handed over to them shortly. Now, they are being given a final shape.

An accountability court that had held proceedings in the Attock Fort in the helicopter case had awarded 14 years imprisonment and imposed on Nawaz Sharif disqualification from holding public office for 21 years.

There was no mention of waiver of this sentence and disqualification in the four-page petition on the basis of which the then President, Rafiq Tarar, had remitted, on the recommendation of Chief Executive Pervez Musharraf, the imprisonment awarded to him in the plane hijacking case.

ANI