Ex-PM Sharif released for wife’s funeral

LAHORE: Pakistani authorities temporarily released former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his daughter from prison to attend funeral services for his wife, Kulsoom (pic), who died of cancer on Tuesday in London.

Video footage from Geo TV showed Sharif walking through Islamabad’s airport yesterday amid tight security to be flown to the eastern city of Lahore, near the family home.

He and his daughter have been given parole for 12 hours but the government of Punjab province is considering an extension so they can attend the funeral tomorrow.

“Initially, we released them on parole for 12 hours but the applica- tion they have given to the Punjab government is for five days and we are considering it,” said provincial law minister Muhammad Raja Basharat.

Ousted as prime minister last year by the Supreme Court over some undeclared income, Nawaz Sharif was in London with Kulsoom this year when a separate anti-graft court handed him a 10-year jail term in absentia over the ownership of luxury flats in London in the 1990s.

Maryam Sharif, his daughter and presumed political heir, was sentenced to seven years in prison on related charges.

Both Sharifs said they had broken no law and there was no proof the residences were purchased with money from corruption.

The father and daughter left Kulsoom’s bedside to return to Pakistan to rally their followers ahead of a July 25 general election. Both were arrested on arrival and have been imprisoned since.

Sharif ’s party, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, which had been in power for five years, lost to the party of former cricket star Imran Khan.

Khan on Tuesday extended condolences to the Sharif family.

Three-time-premier Sharif, who was removed from office in each of his elected terms, has maintained that his most recent ousting in July 2017 and subsequent conviction were part of a plot against him by the military and the judiciary. —