Unlikely Sharif can stand in Pakistan elections: Official

ISLAMABAD: Former Pakistani premier Nawaz Sharif will likely be barred from standing in general elections in January, the country's attorney general said Monday.   

Sharif returned from seven years in exile on Sunday and said that he and his family would file their nomination papers on Monday for the polls due on January 8.   

"As the election law stands today it is highly doubtful that Nawaz Sharif can contest elections," attorney general Malik Mohammad Qayyum told Dawn News television.   

Qayyum said Sharif would probably be barred because he had been sentenced to life imprisonment before he went into exile in 2000, a year after he was toppled by President Pervez Musharraf in a coup.   

The charges relate to corruption cases and also to Sharif's alleged attempt in October 1999 to stop a plane carrying Musharraf, his army chief at the time, from landing in Pakistan.   

That action prompted Musharraf to topple Sharif.  

Sharif had also been disqualified from standing in the elections by the country's anti-corruption body.