August 23, 2007	Thursday	Sha’aban 9, 1428

ISLAMABAD, Aug 22: The government on Wednesday presented in the Supreme Court photocopies of an agreement it said the Sharif brothers had signed with a ‘friendly country’, preferring a 10-year exile to a jail term in Pakistan.

“We have been unable to procure the original agreement so far from the friendly, brotherly country and have filed the photocopies of the same,” Attorney-General Malik Mohammad Qayyum told reporters after submitting the documents in the court on the eve of the hearing of the Sharif brothers’ petition seeking permission to return to the country in order to take part in the coming general election.

On Thursday, a seven-member Supreme Court bench headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry will take up the petitions of the Sharif brothers.

The attorney-general made the intriguing disclosure that the secret agreement had been signed by the Sharif brothers only. He did not reveal the name of a ‘gentleman’ who was involved in the process of working out the agreement.

“We have to exercise discretion not to divulge the name of the gentleman. We will reveal his name in the court only, if asked,” he said, adding that the government was compelled to file the documents because it involved a brotherly Muslim country.

The government had requested for three-week adjournment of the case to procure the original documents, said advocates Ahmed Raza Qasuri and Ibrahim Satti, representing the government. The absence of the original documents would prejudice the government’s case, Mr Qasuri said.

The original documents, the AG said, were being procured because senior advocate Fakhruddin G. Ebrahim had written a letter to him that he wanted to see the original deal that required the Sharif brothers to leave the country.

Answering a question, he said the Sharif brothers had accepted the agreement.

Advocate Satti read out the agreement, “Confidentiality and Hold Harmless Agreement”, separately signed by Nawaz Sharif and Shahbaz Sharif.

The document supposedly signed by Nawaz Sharif on Dec 2, 2000, suggested that he had approved the assistance of a ‘gentleman’ to negotiate on his behalf for his release from incarceration. According to the document, he (Nawaz Sharif) had expressed satisfaction over the course and results of the negotiations and that he was in full agreement with each step in the negotiations.

The documents showed that the Sharifs had also agreed not to engage in any business or political activities or any other activities of any nature against the interest of Pakistan, or relating to their incarceration, for a period of 10 years. They had also undertaken not to disclose to any party either the name of the ‘gentleman’ or of the country involved in their release from Pakistan and relocation, without their consent.

Shahbaz Sharif signed the documents with the same content on Dec 5, 2000.

When Shahbaz Sharif had gone to the US from Saudi Arabia for an urgent medical treatment, he had undertaken that he would return to Saudi Arabia soon after the treatment. He had also agreed that during his stay in the US, he would not give any interview, would not contact the media or make any public statement.

The government also took a legal position that the petitions of the Sharif brothers were not maintainable because these were based on speculations that they would be arrested on their return to Pakistan. Besides, the petitions involved individual grievances premature and they had not agitated any question of public importance.

Recalling the earlier Supreme Court judgment in the Shahbaz Sharif case, the AG said no adverse order against the government was in the field and the questions raised by the Sharif brothers in their petitions were academic in nature on which courts never dilated upon.