Sharif, Maryam get bail, out of prison

Ousted Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, his daughter and son-in-law were released from prison on Wednesday, hours after a top court suspended their sentences in a major corruption case that jeopardised their political career.

In a relief to the still-grieving Sharif family, a two-judge bench of the Islamabad high court suspended the jail sentences of the embattled former Prime Minister Sharif, his daughter Maryam and son-in-law Capt (retd) Muhammad Safdar in a corruption case that pertains to the purchase of four flats in Avenfield House, Park Lane, London.  and ordered their release on bail.

Mr Sharif, Ms Maryam and Mr Safdar were also directed to submit bail bonds worth Rs 500,000. The relief comes just a week after Mr Sharif’s wife, Kulsoom Nawaz, died in London. The trio were briefly allowed out of the high-security Adiala Jail on parole to attend her funeral in Lahore. They returned to jail on Monday. The accountability court judge Mohammad Bashir had sentenced the trio on July 6. Mr Sharif, 68, Mr Maryam, 44, and Mr Safdar, 54, were sentenced to 10 years,  seven years and one year, respectively, in prison and fined in the corruption case.

Mr Sharif’s younger brother and president of his Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) Shehbaz Sharif and other party leaders meet the former premier  at the high-security Adiala Prison before he was released, Geo News reported.

The former three-time premier, his daughter and son-in-law were taken to the Noor Khan Airbase amid tight security for boarding a special plane to Lahore, the report said.