JEDDAH, Oct 28: Nawaz Sharif’s stay in Saudi Arabia has finally come to an end. But the million-dollar question is if the Sharif family was forced by the Saudi authorities to vacate the sprawling, old Saroor Palace in central Jeddah, their residence for almost seven years, or they vacated it of their own free will as they are claiming? The Sharifs, struggling to keep their claim to being Pakistan’s first family, keep generating controversies wherever they go.

Some here insist the Sharif family ‘have been evicted’ from the Saroor Palace in Jeddah by the Saudi government for violating the terms and conditions of their decade-long exile brokered with President Pervez Musharraf. The old palace reportedly belonged to Prince Saud Al Faisal, the Saudi foreign minister.

Former prime minister Nawaz Sharif had applied for a British visa so that he could travel to the UK to facilitate his son Hasan Nawaz’s treatment. After several delays, some members of the family, including Nawaz Sharif and his wife, were finally stamped UK visas by the British mission here. The visa was valid for six months. That period is over now.

According to sources, the delay in stamping the UK visa to the former prime minister was that the British mission wanted the applicants to clarify where would they return after the expiry of their visa term.

The Sharif family had apparently hesitated to put Saudi Arabia as their return destination.

The issue had delayed the granting of visa to the Sharifs by several weeks then. Nawaz Sharif finally left for London nine months ago, reportedly on the condition that he would not take part in politics and would soon return to Saudi Arabia.

However, in defiance of the condition, he got his UK visa extended and is also participating in politics — a move that has reportedly irked Riyadh.