Islamabad, July 17 (Inditop.com) Former Pakistan prime minister Nawaz Sharif was on course to run for public office again after the Supreme Court Friday discharged him in a 10-year-old case in which he was accused of trying to hijack a plane to prevent army chief Pervez Musharraf from returning home.
A five-member bench said there was no evidence to support the charge against Nawaz Sharif, who Musharraf toppled in 1999 after accusing him of preventing his plane flying from Sri Lanka from landing in Karachi.
The Karachi air traffic control was reportedly acting under Sharif’s order, but they relented when Musharraf spoke to them from the cockpit and after Pakistani soldiers surrounded the airport.
After dismissing the Sharif government, Musharraf slapped a case of hijacking against the sacked prime minister, who was eventually forced to retire to Saudi Arabia. Sharif returned to Pakistan in 2007.
According to Geo TV, the Supreme Court bench had heard the case June 18 and reserved its verdict.
Sharif hailed the Supreme Court verdict saying he was relieved and grateful to God. “Allah (God) has determined the truth and now I will work day and night for serving the people of Pakistan,” he said.
President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Syed Yousaf Raza Gilani, who belong to the rival Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), immediately congratulated Sharif.
Gilani said the Supreme Court verdict was proof that there was democracy in Pakistan.
Zardari went a step ahead and declared that the verdict opened the doors to Sharif to again plunge into electoral politics, Xinhua reported.
Sharif was barred from holding any public office for 21 years and fined Rs.50 million ($625,000) after being convicted of the plane hijacking and putting lives of over 200 people, including Musharraf, in danger.
The passengers, Musharraf included, were in a commercial airliner flying from Sri Lanka to Pakistan.
