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Islamabad, Pakistan (AP) - Pakistan's ousted prime minister Nawaz Sharif has been released from jail and exiled to Saudi Arabia, the military government said early Sunday, more than a year after it toppled his administration in a coup. "This decision has been taken in the best interest of the country and people of Pakistan," the government said in an official statement carried by the state-run news agency.
There was no further explanation for why army ruler Gen. Pervez Musharraf, who overthrew Sharif's elected government, would let him leave the country.
Musharraf said Sharif's life sentence for hijacking and kidnapping had been commuted - convictions connected with the October 1999 coup - as had as a 14-year jail term for abuse of power. Sharif must still forfeit property valued at $100 million and pay a $500,000 fine.
The former prime minister's whereabouts were not immediately known. Officials of his Pakistan Muslim League party, speaking on condition of anonymity, said he was being transferred to an air force base near the capital, Islamabad.
The party also distributed a list of 18 family members who will be going to Saudi Arabia with Sharif. They included Sharif's elderly parents, his three children and their families, as well as his brother Shahbaz, a former chief minister of Pakistan's powerful Punjab province, his wife and daughter.
Also allowed to leave is Sharif's younger brother Abbas and his two sons. Abbas, who had been in jail on corruption charges, was released, said Mariam Sharif, the deposed prime minister's daughter.
Sharif and his family were to board a special aircraft for Saudi Arabia and leave Sunday morning, the Pakistan Muslim League officials said. They said a member of the Saudi royal family brokered Sharif's release from prison and exile to Saudi Arabia.
Officials in Saudi Arabia were not available for comment late Saturday. As custodians of Islam's holiest shrines, the Saudis have a tradition of opening their doors for fellow Muslims seeking refuge. Idi Amin, the exiled and brutal former dictator of Uganda, was received by the Saudis in 1980, a year after he was ousted from his East African homeland.
Amin was accepted on the clear understanding that he not speak publicly and cease all involvement in politics. Amin displeased his Saudi hosts in his early years in exile by issuing political statements and phoning reporters abroad.
In Sharif's hometown of Lahore in eastern Punjab province, his elderly parents packed their belongings, Mariam Sharif said. She also was to accompany her parents to Saudi Arabia.
In Islamabad, Sharif's wife Kulsoom Sharif was packing huge containers, preparing for the family's departure.
Earlier, Pakistani Information Secretary Anwar Mahmood told The Associated Press that Sharif - who has been held in a cell in a 16th-century fort - had asked permission to leave the country for medical treatment.
Kulsoom said her husband needed immediate medical treatment and suffers from high blood pressure and a heart ailment.
"His face becomes pale and he grabs his chest while walking even up to the toilet," she said.
According to Mahmood, doctors have seen Sharif and his condition was stable.
Musharraf overthrew Sharif's government in a bloodless coup last year, accusing him of corruption and misrule after Sharif dismissed Musharraf and tried to replace him with a junior general. The army revolted.
After the coup, the military government charged Sharif with ordering the hijacking of a plane carrying Musharraf. Sharif argued that his actions only aimed to avert a coup that was already under way.
Frustrated by years of
corruption and misrule by elected governments, most Pakistanis welcomed
the coup. Corruption is a major issue in Pakistan, where four successive
governments have been ousted due to corruption since 1990.
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