Ex-Pakistan PM Sharif, daughter released from jail for his wife's funeral

Nawaz Sharif (R), former Prime Minister and leader of Pakistan Muslim League, gestures to supporters as his daughter Maryam Nawaz looks on during his party's workers convention in Islamabad. File picture: Faisal Mahmood/Reuters

Nawaz Sharif (R), former Prime Minister and leader of Pakistan Muslim League, gestures to supporters as his daughter Maryam Nawaz looks on during his party's workers convention in Islamabad. File picture: Faisal Mahmood/Reuters

Published Sep 12, 2018

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Lahore, Pakistan - Pakistani authorities

on Wednesday temporarily released former Prime Minister Nawaz

Sharif and his daughter from prison to attend funeral services

for his wife, Kulsoom, who died of cancer the day before in

London.

Video footage from Geo TV showed Sharif walking through

Islamabad's airport amid tight security to be flown to the

eastern city of Lahore, near the family home.

The former premier and his daughter have been given parole

for 12 hours but the government of Punjab province is

considering an extension so they can attend the funeral on

Friday. The body is due to be flown back from London on

Thursday.

"Initially, we released them on parole for 12 hours but the

application they have given to the Punjab government is for five

days and we are considering it," provincial law minister

Muhammad Raja Basharat told Reuters.

Ousted as prime minister last year by the Supreme Court over

some undeclared income, Nawaz Sharif was in London with Kulsoom

this year when a separate anti-graft court handed him a 10-year

jail term in absentia over the ownership of luxury flats in

London in the 1990s.

Maryam Sharif, his daughter and presumed political heir, was

sentenced to seven years in prison on related charges.

Both Sharifs said they had broken no law and there was no

proof the residences were purchased with money from corruption.

The father and daughter left Kulsoom's bedside to return to

Pakistan to rally their followers ahead of a July 25 general

election. Both were arrested on arrival and have been imprisoned

since.

Sharif's party, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, which had

been in power for five years, lost to the party of former

cricket star Imran Khan.

Khan on Tuesday extended condolences to the Sharif family.

Three-time-premier Sharif, who was removed from office in

each of his elected terms, has maintained that his most recent

ousting in July 2017 and subsequent conviction were part of a

plot against him by the military and the judiciary.

The army has repeatedly denied any interference in politics,

while the courts insist justice is carried out impartially. 

Reuters

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