Nawaz Sharif plans to fly to Pakistan again

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan's exiled former prime minister Nawaz Sharif is planning to return home mid-November, an aide announced here, to defy his Sep 10 deportation to Saudi Arabia.

"Nawaz Sharif will arrive in Pakistan next month, preferably between November 15-30," Siddique-ul Farooque, a spokesman for the Pakistan Muslim League announced here on Monday.

He said the date and place of Sharif's arrival would be decided and announced later.

Buoyed by a Supreme Court order that said he could return, Sharif arrived dramatically along with his family members from London, but within hours he was deported from the airport to Saudi Arabia, where he has been in exile since 2000.

President Pervez Musharraf, who deposed Sharif in a bloodless coup in October 1999, has insisted that Sharif had entered into a deal that would keep him exiled in Saudi Arabia for ten years.

Pakistan's apex court is to hear a petition on whether Sharif's deportation amounts to contempt of its earlier verdict.