NYT : Ex-Premier of Pakistan Flown to Saudi Arabia After Arrest

Ex-Premier of Pakistan Flown to Saudi Arabia After Arrest

By CARLOTTA GALL and SALMAN MASOOD | September 10, 2007

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Monday, Sept. 10 — Nawaz Sharif, a Pakistani opposition leader and former prime minister, was arrested here today and flown to Saudi Arabia after he arrived here intent on leading an effort to oust the current president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf.

Mr. Sharif was dragged out of a lounge in the Islamabad airport by several police officers after being served with an arrest warrant for a money laundering case that was revived recently, but it was unclear on what basis he left the country. Tariq Azim Khan, Pakistan’s state minister for information, said Mr. Sharif had chosen to leave for Saudi Arabia, where he has been in exile, instead of remaining in Pakistan under arrest.

“While he was being taken to detention, he was offered if he wanted to avail the opportunity to go to Saudi Arabia as per the agreement,” Mr. Khan said. “He opted to go to Saudi Arabia. We arranged a special flight and he flew out of Islamabad.” Mr. Sharif was reported to have arrived in Jidda, Saudi Arabia, a few hours later.

But lawyers traveling with Mr. Sharif said the arrest and deportation were unlawful and were setting the government up for a clash with the country’s Supreme Court, which ruled last month that the former prime minister should be able to return unhindered to Pakistan. The chief justice’s popularity exploded this year when General Musharraf suspended him for four months, and his reinstatement signaled a new independence on the part of the court.

“The whole episode was very unlawful and was a clear contempt of court,” said Amjad Malik, a British lawyer. “It is a violation of the law of Pakistan. It is a criminal offense to kidnap someone and take them out of the country.”

Mr. Sharif, who was toppled in a bloodless coup by General Musharraf in 1999, was hoping to end his seven years in exile and begin his challenge to the current government when he boarded a Pakistan International Airlines flight from London on Sunday.

He was coming home to a country gripped by uncertainty, anticipation and anxiety about the government’s response to his return.

A court official in Pakistan representing the National Accountability Bureau, retired Lt. Col. Azhar Mahmud Qazi, said that Mr. Sharif was arrested after a police officer had served a warrant on Mr. Sharif, charging him with money laundering. The amount involved, the official said, was about $31.5 million.

“I am amazed by this fabricated case,” Mr. Sharif said as he was shoved through the crowd in Islamabad airport. “I’m amazed, I’m shocked.”

Hours before his arrival, the police sealed off the airport to prevent Mr. Sharif’s supporters from greeting him. Clashes were reported on the roads leading to the airport, in other parts of the capital and in other cities across the Punjab province, with police firing tear gas canisters and using baton charges to disperse protesters.

After he had been detained, many of the police manning the roadblocks around the airport asked for news of Mr. Sharif and some expressed unhappiness that he had been arrested.

“Not happy,” said one policeman, named Rashid. “It was his natural desire to live in Pakistan.”

“It’s not good,” said another policeman, named Qazalabash. “He came back to his home country after seven years. It’s not good they arrested him.”

After he touched down today, Mr. Sharif’s plane taxied to a stop away from the terminal and then sat on the runway for about 90 minutes. About 100 police officers, some with weapons, surrounded the aircraft.

A police officer boarded the aircraft and asked Mr. Sharif, who was surrounded by about 15 aides and 30 journalists, to disembark, but he refused, asking first for a guarantee that he would not be arrested or deported. He also asked for a bus to accommodate the entire group.

A member of Britain’s House of Lords, Lord Nazir Ahmed, was present on the plane, and he negotiated with police to allow Mr. Sharif’s safe transit into the terminal.

Eventually, the police around the aircraft stood back and Mr. Sharif was able to leave the plane and get onto a bus, and was taken to a V.I.P. lounge in the terminal where he was waiting to go through immigration when he was arrested.

“I think it is a dream come true after seven years to see your own country,” he said, after getting off the plane, and before his formal arrest and deportation. “It is a great feeling.”

Mr. Sharif was able to return home after Pakistan’s Supreme Court ruled in late August that he could.

The court ruling was seen as a severe setback for General Musharraf, a strong ally of the United States, whose own grip on power is seen as increasingly tenuous, and who has to stand for re-election in the coming weeks.

Mr. Sharif departed Heathrow Airport in London on Sunday evening, insisting that he was ready to challenge General Musharraf for power. “I have a mission that is much more important than any reception — to restore democracy in the country and restore the rule of law,” he said. “So it is a very noble mission that I have.”

Mr. Sharif served as prime minister twice in the 1990s, and has consistently been one of the most vocal and defiant opponents of General Musharraf.

Pakistani officials had been tight lipped about their strategy toward Mr. Sharif prior to his return. “I can’t say,” Sheik Rashid Ahmed, the minister of railways, told Dawn News, a television news channel.

But officials of Mr. Sharif’s party claim that more than 2,000 party workers have been detained in recent days, ahead of his return. Government officials say the number is exaggerated.

Ahsan Iqbal, the information secretary of Mr. Sharif’s political party, said Sunday that “Islamabad seems under siege.”

Mr. Sharif’s arrival plans had been seen as a catalyst to the anti-Musharraf campaign, analysts here say. General Musharraf’s popularity has decreased considerably in recent months as he tries to seek re-election after eight years in power, and there have been increasing calls for a return to democracy. He also is under pressure to step down as chief of the military in order to run for a new term.

Mr. Sharif, whose own term in power was marred by accusations of corruption and authoritarianism, is riding a wave of popularity for his tough stance against the military’s role in politics.

In 1999, Mr. Sharif was sentenced to life in prison, but the following year, General Musharraf arranged for Mr. Sharif, his brother, and their families to live in exile for 10 years in Saudi Arabia.

Mr. Sharif has denied that he agreed to stay out of the country for 10 years. On Saturday, he said at a news briefing in London that the agreement was only for five years.