Author: Kathy Gannon,
Associated Press Writer
Publication: The Associated
Press
Date: December 9, 2000
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.
