Nawaz opted for exile over detention: Shaukat Aziz

Pakistan Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz has said that Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N) chief Nawaz Sharif opted for exile to Saudi Arabia over detention.

Islamabad, Sep 11 : Pakistan Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz has said that Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N) chief Nawaz Sharif opted for exile to Saudi Arabia over detention.

"We did not force him (Sharif) to return. I have been told that he was given two options - either to go to prison or proceed to Saudi Arabia," the Daily Times quoted Aziz, as saying.

Ruling PML President Chaudhry Shujaat also said that Sharif had chosen to go into exile rather than being arrested.

"Nawaz Sharif has signed an agreement for 10 years with Saudi Arabia and there was immense moral pressure for sending him back for abiding by the agreement," Shujaat said in a statement.

He further said, "After telling a lie to people for last seven year, he should now seek pardon from Allah for next three years for the violating of the agreement."

"Sharif has gone to Saudi Arabia according to the same agreement that took him there earlier," Information Minister Mohammad Ali Durrani told reporters.

"He had left the country and his party on his free will in 2000 and he has done it again," Durrani added.

The arrest of Nawaz Sharif does not come under the case of contempt of court as the Supreme Court has allowed him to return to the country but there were no directives that he would not be arrested, The News quoted Attorney General of Pakistan Justice (retd.) Malik Qayyum, as saying.

Echoing the same view over the issue, Sindh Chief Minister Arbab Ghulam Rahim has said that Sharif has gone back to Jeddah voluntarily and there is no violation of court order in his case.

Railways Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed took a U-turn after he claimed that he brokered five years exile agreement and said: "How the guarantors can allow him to breach the agreement."

ANI