The new Pakistan government is considering annulling or suspending the conviction of Nawaz Sharif, the country’s three-time former prime minister, in corruption cases, Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah hinted, a move that will provide him a fresh chance to plead his cases. In 2018, he was convicted in a controversial trial in corruption cases.
 

Sanaullah said that both the federal and Punjab's provincial government had the power to quash or suspend the punishment of an accused and offer him a chance to plead his case afresh before a court of law for being "wrongly" sentenced earlier in the case, reported Dawn newspaper.

The 72-year-old Nawaz Sharif, elder brother of Pakistan’s current Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, is currently residing in Landon. In 2017, senior Sharif was removed from the position of the prime minister by the country’s Supreme Court after his name surfaced in the Panama Papers, leaked documents that exposed the alleged illegal assets in offshore havens of the rich and influential across the world.

Later, in a controversial trial, allegedly influenced by the military, he was convicted in two cases in 2018 and sentenced to ten years' imprisonment. Additionally, the court also barred him for life from holding any public office.

Sanaullah said that the provisions might be used to provide relief to the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) supremo and others. He, however, said that Sharif would decide his homecoming on the basis of his health. Recently, Sharif was also issued a fresh passport after the earlier one was canceled by the former government led by Imran Khan.

Last month, Imran Khan was voted out of power in a no-confidence motion vote in Parliament. In its three and a half year-long tenure, Khan’s government was accused of targeting and hounding its political opponents through central agencies, prosecuting them in different corruption cases.

 (SAM)