LAHORE, Aug 30: A senior lawyer on Friday challenged banishment of deposed prime minister Nawaz Sharif, saying there was no legal bar on the exiled leader’s return from Saudi Arabia.

“The law of the land does not have the sentence of exile,” lawyer Khwaja Sultan Ahmad told AFP, arguing that there was no written agreement between the Sharifs and the government on the issue.

Sharif was convicted of tax evasion and plane hijacking in 2000, several months after Musharraf overthrew and jailed him in a bloodless coup in October, 1999.

The sentence was then waived under an alleged agreement between the government and Sharif which allegedly stipulated he and members of his family would not return to Pakistan for 10 years.

The statement of Ahmed, who served as defence counsel during Sharif’s trial, came after election authorities gave preliminary approval to nominations filed by Sharif, brother Shahbaz and wife Kulsoom for the October polls.

Ahmed said when Sharif and his close relatives were sent into exile in December 2000, Muhammad Rafiq Tarrar was president of Pakistan but he has expressed his “ignorance about the existence of any contract” between the government and the Sharifs. The PML-N also insists that no such agreement exists.

“It appears there is no written agreement or contract for the exile of Nawaz Sharif,” Ahmed said. “Moreover, Pakistan’s constitution does not allow the government to send its nationals into exile,” he said.

He also stressed that the pardon granted to Sharif renders him innocent and his criminal conviction now stands invalid.

“If there is nothing on the record, then the pardon will be presumed a pardon within the meaning of law of the land.

“After a pardon, the conviction and disqualification stands nowhere and the accused shall be deemed as innocent,” he said.—AFP