ISLAMABAD, 25 August 2007 — Deposed Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, allowed Thursday by the Supreme Court to return home after seven years in exile, could be arrested in an earlier case of hijacking once he is back in Pakistan, Geo TV yesterday quoted Attorney General Malik Muhammad Qayyum as saying.

In an interview to Geo TV Qayyum said that the former prime minister was sentenced to life imprisonment in a hijacking case but the sentence was revoked after he accepted exile for 10 years.

If he decides to come back the government can also reconsider its decision of concessions given to him, he said.

“If one party dishonors the agreement, then the other one is also not bound to honor it. Nawaz Sharif could be arrested on his arrival in the country,” Qayyum said.

The attorney general said the final decision on whether to restore the life sentence on Sharif could only be taken by President Pervez Musharraf and added that there was nothing in the Supreme Court ruling to suggest that the former prime minister could not be arrested on criminal charges.

Qayyum said the sentence awarded to Sharif was not pardoned but remitted by the president, adding that the stigma of conviction remains. The attorney general said the sentence of fine and property confiscation would be applicable.

“The law will take its own course, whenever the petitioners come to Pakistan. A Rs. 500 million fine is imposed on Nawaz Sharif in the plane conspiracy case that will be recovered through the confiscation of his property,” Qayyum was quoted as saying by the Daily Times newspaper yesterday.

“The president has the authority of remitting the sentences and with the advice of the prime minister, he could restore the pardoned sentences,” Qayyum said.

Because of this conviction, Qayyum said, Sharif will be unable to contest the elections, and is rendered disqualified under Article 62 of the constitution. The president has been briefed about all the legal aspects in this regard, he added.

Giving its verdict on a petition by Sharif asking to be allowed to return home from exile, the top court said the former premier has “an inalienable right to enter and remain in the country as a citizen of Pakistan.”

Local media welcomed the ruling.

The Dawn newspaper hailed the verdict. “If the polls are to have any credibility, it is essential that all political parties and their leaders should be allowed to participate,” Dawn said. “The government should find it in its own interest to hold fair and free elections with the participation of all major stakeholders.”

Another daily, The News, said the decision sets a “much-needed legal precedent ... (that) should prevent governments in the future from forcing into exile those whom they do not see eye-to-eye with.”

The Supreme Court delivered a further blow to the government yesterday when it ordered the parliamentary affairs minister, Sher Afgan Niazi, to appear on a charge of contempt after he criticized the Sharif verdict.

Afgan “uttered remarks which are considered contemptuous,” court spokesman Arshad Munir said, and he could be jailed for six months if he fails to apologize. The judges gave Niazi, who said he was expressing a personal view, two weeks to reply to the contempt charge.

Sharif, who heads Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, was toppled in a military coup by Mushrraf in 1999. He was subsequently sentenced in 2000 for treason, tax evasion and hijacking. Sharif’s party rejected any possibility of reconciliation with the country’s military ruler yesterday.

Musharraf, in political crisis since March when he made a failed attempt to fire Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry, has long vowed to prevent Sharif from coming back.

Yesterday, Sadique Al-Farooq, a leader of Sharif’s party, said, “There is no chance for any reconciliation” with Musharraf. “It is out of question,” he said. “Democracy and dictatorship cannot go together.”

Farooq said their party would meet in Islamabad, today to consider dates for Sharif’s return.

Musharraf, who made Pakistan a key ally of the US in its campaign against terrorism after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, is under growing pressure to crack down on Al-Qaeda, the Taleban and local militants.

But his grip on power has loosened since March 9, when lawyers and opposition parties protested his bid to fire Chaudhry, who was later reinstated by the court.

Sharif and Benazir Bhutto, another ex-premier agitating for a comeback, insist Musharraf must let them contest year-end parliamentary elections if the votes are to be considered democratic.

Musharraf has recently begun talking of the need for political reconciliation and is in talks with Benazir — who fled Pakistan in 1999 to avoid arrest on corruption charges — about a post-electoral alliance.