Pakistan charges and deports Sharif over corruption

FORMER prime minister Nawaz Sharif returned to Pakistan from a seven-year exile, hoping to campaign against the country’s US-allied military ruler, but was immediately charged with corruption and deported to Saudi Arabia hours later.

On his arrival from London, black-uniformed commandos surrounded Sharif inside his plane; he was taken into custody and charged, then spirited to another plane and sent to Jiddah, where he was whisked away in a convoy from the airport, sirens blaring, witnesses said.

Sharif’s deportation sidelines a powerful political enemy of the general, but it is likely to deepen Musharraf’s growing unpopularity and reinforce public perceptions that he is an authoritarian ruler ahead of presidential and legislative elections.