Nawaz Sharif won’t return to Pakistan anytime soon, close aide says

Pakistan's former prime minister Nawaz Sharif looks out the window of his plane after attending a ceremony to inaugurate the M9 motorway between Karachi and Hyderabad, Pakistan on Feb. 3, 2017. (REUTERS/File)

• Sharif’s party PML-N says it does not want to risk his life by advising him to return to Pakistan without finishing his medical treatment
• Legal experts describe Sharif’s removal from the UK as a complex process, say the ex-premier can even demand protection in London under local laws

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s former prime minister Nawaz Sharif will not return to the country before completing medical treatment in London, a senior leader of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) said on Saturday, though the government and a local court seek the ex-premier’s extradition after his medical bail recently expired.
The ex-premier and opposition leader was granted eight weeks of medical bail in November last year for treatment in London. The Islamabad High Court allowed him to request an extension from the provincial government of Punjab, but the latter said in February that the PML-N leader had insufficient legal, moral or medical grounds to stay away from the country.
“Everybody knows that Nawaz Sharif is undergoing a medical treatment in London for multiple diseases and will return to Pakistan after full recovery,” Senator Mushahidullah Khan, Sharif’s a close aide and a senior PML-N leader, told Arab News.
Sharif was sentenced to seven years in jail for corruption in December 2018. He denies any wrongdoing and has termed all charges against him as politically motivated. However, the Islamabad High Court issued non-bailable arrest warrants for him on September 15 due to his failure to return to Pakistan and face corruption cases against him.
“Our party strongly believes in the rule of law and respects the judiciary, but we aren’t ready to put Nawaz Sharif’s life at risk by advising him to return to Pakistan at this time,” Khan said. “Nawaz Sharif is getting treatment in London by exercising one of the basic human rights — the right to medical treatment.”
The three-time former premier urged opposition parties last month while addressing a multiparty conference to formulate a strategy to overthrow Prime Minister Imran Khan’s government for being “inefficient.”
However, he also maintained that the real target of the opposition’s confrontational politics was not going to be the current Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) administration but those who had brought it into power.
Sharif’s reference to the country’s security establishment became clear from his subsequent statements wherein he accused Pakistan’s military of interfering in political matters. After his recent fiery speeches from London, the government slapped a broadcast ban on “proclaimed offenders and absconders,” a prohibition that was widely viewed as an effort to silence Sharif.
Prime Minister Khan also asked PTI leaders to respond to the opposition’s narrative on Friday and instructed them to devise legal strategy to bring back the PML-N leader to the country from the UK.
“The government has decided in principle to use all legal and diplomatic options to ensure Nawaz Sharif’s extradition from UK,” PTI spokesman Ahmad Jawad told Arab News.
Legal experts say, however, that the possibility of Sharif’s deportation from the UK is limited in the absence of an extradition treaty between the two countries.
“We know it’s difficult to bring a criminal back from the UK in absence of the extradition treaty, but it doesn’t mean that we stop initiating the process. The government has initiated the process for Nawaz Sharif’s repatriation on directions of the Islamabad High Court, and we hope the UK authorities will respond positively,” Jawad said.
Muzzammil Mukhtar, a solicitor and director of London law firm, Synthesis Chambers Solicitors, said that there was a public perception that miscarriage of justice could occur in Pakistan in such political cases, adding that the extradition of a politician like Nawaz Sharif was therefore a complex process.
“Even if Pakistan seeks his administrative removal from the UK on the basis of visa and bail expiry, Sharif has an absolute right to claim protection in London under local laws,” he told Arab News.
Mukhtar said that the UK government could not extradite or even deport a person until all rights to appeal and relief of an applicant were not exhausted.
“Nawaz Sharif can seek to stay in London under Article 2 and 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights,” he said. “A person’s right to life and protection, based on medical conditions, is covered under these articles.”