SHARIF ARRESTED ON HIS RETURN TO LAHORE, AS POLITICAL TURMOIL GROWS
>> ISLAMABAD: Former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his daughter and political heir Maryam were arrested at the Lahore airport on Friday night on corruption charges as they returned to the country in an attempt to rally their beleaguered party days before national elections.
The Sharifs were convicted in absentia last week and sentenced to lengthy prison terms in connection with their ownership of expensive properties in London, a case they say was manufactured by their political foes and the country’s powerful military.
Though the Sharifs cannot run in the July 25 election, analysts said they felt compelled to return from London, where they had been for many weeks, to give a lift to their party in what has become a highly charged campaign.
Sharif, a three-time prime minister who has been shadowed by corruption accusations throughout his career, is also concerned about cementing a legacy as a champion of civilian governance and opponent of the military’s overarching role, they said.
The arrests came the same day the campaign took a deadly turn. More than 130 people, including a candidate from another party, were killed in two militant attacks elsewhere in the country.
High drama surrounded the arrests as the authorities blocked roads, shut down mobile and internet service and deployed thousands of officers to thwart supporters of the Sharifs from reaching the airport.
The police arrested at least 600 workers of Sharif’s political party, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz on security-related charges in the past several days.
Officials from the National Account- ability Court, the anti-corruption watchdog, placed the Sharifs under arrest as they arrived on an Etihad Airways commercial flight shortly before 9 pm. They were transferred to Adiala Prison on the outskirts of Rawalpindi.
“Pakistan is at a decisive turning point,” Sharif said in a video message to supporters that cast doubt on the credibility of the coming election. Photos of Sharif saying goodbye in London to his ill wife, Kulsoom Nawaz Sharif, went viral in the country’s social media.
The show of force by the government in Punjab province, which includes Lahore, was effective in turning back thousands of the Sharifs’ supporters from the airport, but it also appeared to have engendered a backlash.
Talat Hussain, a journalist and popular talk show host, said he had never seen such “palpable anger against the establishment” in Lahore.
“People have come out in the thousands to endorse Nawaz Sharif,” Hussain said. “There is anger against suppression. Against manipulation. Against blackout.”
Police and a paramilitary force known as the Rangers clashed with protesters in Punjab province, a stronghold of Sharif’s party, as rallies moved toward Lahore. Entry points to Lahore, the former prime minister’s hometown, were blocked with shipping containers.
The corruption probe against the Sharifs arose from the Panama Papers leak, which unearthed details of expensive properties the family owned in London.
Sharif has denied any wrongdoing, but he could not adequately explain how he could afford the properties.