PNN – Sources related to the former prime minister of Pakistan Nawaz Sharif announced that he plans to return to his country next Saturday after living in exile for four years and is trying to obtain a bail order from the court to prevent arrest before returning.
According to the Pakistan News Network, Pakistan’s former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, who resigned in 2017, is seeking bail from a court in the city of Islamabad ahead of his planned return to his country next Saturday, according to his lawyer and officials close to him.
According to the “Associated Press” news agency, Nawaz Sharif, who has been living in self-imposed exile in the British capital since four years ago until this month, is expected to return to his homeland on Saturday next week. In 2019, he refused to respond to the summons to the Pakistani court and is now considered a fugitive from justice in this country.
Nawaz Sharif resigned from this position in 2017 after the Supreme Court of Pakistan found him unqualified to be prime minister on charges of corruption. Two years later, Nawaz Sharif, while facing new corruption charges, complained of chest pain and Imran Khan, who became prime minister after his resignation, allowed him to travel to London for treatment.
After arriving in London in 2019, Nawaz Sharif extended his stay in the British capital on the pretext that his doctors did not allow him to travel. In 2020, the Pakistani court issued an arrest warrant for Nawaz Sharif for not returning to his country from London, and he has been prosecuted by the Pakistani judiciary ever since.
Nawaz Sharif’s lawyer Amjad Parvez said that a court in Islamabad adjourned the hearing of his client’s bail request to Thursday this week.
Nawaz Sharif intends to end his four years of self-inflicted exile, which he has spent most of this period of exile in London. He traveled to Saudi Arabia last week and is scheduled to travel to Dubai before preparing to return to Pakistan on Saturday.
The former prime minister of Pakistan will be arrested upon his return to the country if he fails to obtain bail from the Islamabad High Court in order to prevent his arrest. He announced that if he gets bail, he will give a speech in a rally in Lahore and then surrender himself to the Islamabad court.
Nawaz Sharif’s party known as Pakistan Muslim League has announced that tens of thousands of people are going to welcome him when he arrives at Lahore airport.
Imran Khan, who became the prime minister of Pakistan after the resignation of Nawaz Sharif and is considered one of his main political rivals, has also received a prison sentence in connection with a corruption case and is currently serving a three-year prison sentence.
Imran Khan was removed as prime minister in April 2022 following a vote of no confidence by the Pakistani parliament, and then Shahbaz Sharif, Nawaz Sharif’s brother, succeeded him. Shahbaz Sharif’s prime ministership continued until his resignation last August, and now the government of Anwar Haq Kakar, the interim prime minister of Pakistan, is in charge of running the country’s affairs until new elections are held.
Pakistan’s next parliamentary elections are scheduled to be held in the last week of January 2024.
Pakistan’s politics has been in deep turmoil since Imran Khan was removed from the post of Prime Minister last year. The Pakistan Muslim League is extremely unpopular due to the failure of the Shehbaz Sharif government to curb the country’s rampant inflation. The leaders of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz are looking for Nawaz Sharif to lead the party’s campaign for the next elections in the country.