Nawaz Sharif to return to Pakistan from London next month: Minister

A federal minister from Pakistan's ruling PML-N on Monday announced that the party’s supreme leader and deposed prime minister Nawaz Sharif will return to the country from London next month, ending a three-year long self-exile.

“Former prime minister Sharif will return to Pakistan from London in September. Upon his return, the PML-N will not let him to go to jail,” Federal Minister Mian Javed Latif told a press conference here.

Latif’s announcement comes days after Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chairman Imran Khan claimed that efforts are underway to bring back Sharif to the country in late September under "some deal".

Indirectly referring to the powerful military establishment of the country, ousted premier Khan alleged: “A plot is hatched to disqualify me in Toshakhana and the prohibited funding cases to pave way for PML-N supremo Sharif’s return from London next month.”

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Latif said Sharif, 72, should come to Pakistan as "level playing field in Pakistani politics is not possible without his presence".

“Doctors may have different their opinion about Sharif’s return but the people of Pakistan have declared their wish that he should be among them,” said Latif, who recently met the deposed prime minister in London.

He blamed former chief justice of Pakistan Saqib Nisar for disqualifying Sharif in frivolous Panama Papers case. “Injustice was done to him and now time has come that this injustice should be undone,” Latif asserted.

Cricketer-turned-politician Khan also talked about the pressure from the establishment to agree on “nullifying Sharif's lifetime disqualification” so that he could compete in the next general elections in 2023.

Interior Minister Rana Sanaullahm, who is considered close to Sharif, said that “certain amendments” might be made through the Parliament to undo the lifetime disqualification of the three-time premier.

Sanaullah earlier claimed that Sharif would return to Pakistan ahead of the next general elections for a “real one-on-one bout” with Khan and run the party’s campaign.

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An ailing Sharif has been living in London since November 2019 for medical treatment after the high court allowed him a four-week reprieve. He was serving seven-year imprisonment in the Kot Lakhpat Jail in Lahore in the Al-Azizia corruption case before his departure.

Prior to his exit, the now-Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif had submitted an undertaking to the Lahore High Court ensuring his elder brother would return “within four weeks or on certification by doctors that he has regained his health and is fit to return back to Pakistan.”

In August last year, Sharif filed an appeal with the British Immigration Tribunal after the Home Department refused to extend his stay in the country on “medical grounds” any further.

Sharif can legally remain in the UK till the tribunal issues its decision on his plea for his stay in the country. Nawaz’s passport expired in February 2021. However, Shehbaz’s government issued a fresh passport to him in April last.