Pak opposition leader jailed:
Pakistani opposition leader Shehbaz Sharif was ordered jailed on Saturday for 10 days after being arrested in a corruption case, his lawyer said, meaning he will not be able to campaign for his party ahead of crucial by-elections next week.
Sharif is the younger brother of ousted prime minister Nawaz Sharif, who was sentenced earlier this year to 10 years in prison by an anti-corruption court after the Supreme Court removed him from power.
Friday’s arrest of Shehbaz Sharif by agents of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) in Lahore involved a case of alleged corruption in a lowcost housing scheme when Sharif was chief minister of Punjab province.
A NAB court on Saturday heard charges that Sharif in 2014 illegally cancelled a contract with a construction company and sought to award it to another company, allegedly for a bribe. The court ordered him remanded in custody for 10 days to be interrogated, his lawyer Azam Nazir Tarar said. (RTRS)
Zia admitted to hospital: Jailed Bangladesh opposition leader Khaleda Zia was admitted to hospital in Dhaka on Saturday, an official said, following a court order in response to her deteriorating health.
Former prime minister Zia, 73, was taken from the abandoned 19th-century prison where she is serving her sentence to a top medical university clinic in the heart of the capital, an AFP photographer at the scene said. (AFP)