A Pakistan court on Friday issued an arrest warrant against the brother of Nawaz Sharif in connection with a murder case.
ISLAMABAD: A Pakistan court on Friday issued an arrest warrant against the brother of Nawaz Sharif in connection with a murder case while the deposed Premier too faced detention for alleged involvement in corruption on the duo's likely arrival home next week after a seven-year exile.
Shahbaz Sharif, former Chief Minister of Punjab province, is accused of masterminding a fake encounter in which five people, members of extremist sectarian groups, were killed during his tenure between 1997 and 1999.
An anti-terrorism court in Lahore issued the arrest warrant against Shahbaz, who has vowed to return to Pakistan on September 10 along with his brother, in connection with the murder case, media reports here said.
A man named Saaduddin had approached the court claiming that his two sons, who were among the five people shot dead in the fake police encounter, were killed on the instructions of Shahbaz.
In a related development, an anti-corruption court in Rawalpindi hearing graft cases against Sharif and his family members agreed with Deputy Prosecutor General Juslfikar Bhutta that the power to arrest the Sharifs rests with the National Accountability Bureau (NAB).
Bhutta, who wanted the arrest warrants against the Sharifs, told the judge Khalid Mehmood Chaudhry that according to rules of NAB ordinance, its Chairman has the powers to issue arrest warrants. The judge okayed it saying that it is very much within the law.
The court adjourned the hearing to September 13.
Reacting to the developments in the courts, Ahsan Iqbal, central spokesman of Sharif's PML-N party, said the former Prime Minister, who was toppled in a bloodless military coup by General Pervez Musharraf in 1999, would return despite facing prospects of arrest.
The main problem for the Sharifs is that the Saudi government, which provided them asylum for six years, reportedly expressed unhappiness over the deposed Premier's plans to return home, violating his "pledge" to stay out of the country for 10 years.
Sharif, who along with his family spent six years in a royal palace in Jeddah, later opted to move to London, where he currently lives.
The public expression of the Saudi unhappiness over his plans to return has triggered speculation that the Sharifs could be deported back to Jeddah on their arrival.
Protectively, the government also reopened the cases against the Sharif brothers.
Also, orders have been issued to all schools and colleges in Islamabad not to function on September 10. Hundreds of Sharif's party activists have already been taken into preventive custody.
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