Exiled Pakistani PM to go home

BBC: "The Sharifs have an inalienable right to return and remain in the country as citizens of Pakistan Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry Chief JusticeThe Sharifs have an inalienable right to return and remain in the country as citizens of Pakistan." Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry Chief Justice"

Exiled former Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has pledged to go home soon and contest elections, in a bid to oust President Pervez Musharraf.
He was speaking in London soon after Pakistan's top court ruled against the government and said he could return.

Mr Sharif, who left Pakistan after he was deposed by Gen Musharraf in a 1999 military coup, said it was "the beginning of the end" for his rival.

Mr Sharif told the BBC: "Dictatorship and democracy don't go together. One will have to go." ... "It is dictatorship which will have to go. The sooner Musharraf understands this, the better it is for him and the country." ... "I'm not scared," he said. "If Musharraf wants to fabricate cases against me, let him do that. I'll face them."

Mr Sharif was sentenced to life in prison for tax evasion and treason among other offences and went into exile following the coup eight years ago. The authorities said Mr Sharif had promised to stay out of Pakistan and away from politics for 10 years in exchange for his freedom and exile.

But Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry said in his judgement on Thursday: "(The Sharifs) have an inalienable right to return and remain in the country as citizens of Pakistan."

The Pakistani government said it accepted the ruling but hinted the Sharifs might face legal action on home soil. Attorney General Malik Mohammed Qayyum said: "Let them come and the law will take its own course."

Sharif to Return from Exile

Dawn: "Former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif Thursday ramped up his campaign to return to Pakistan to contest elections, arguing that President Pervez Musharraf had illegally sent him into exile. Sharif's lawyers were presenting arguments in a Supreme Court hearing. A lawyer for Sharif said his client had an "undeniable, unqualified, fundamental right to remain in Pakistan and contest the forthcoming elections."

"You have no right to send someone abroad, to send someone into exile," attorney Fakhruddin Ibrahim said in the first hearing on a petition filed by the former leader and his brother. Attorney General Malik Mohammed Qayyum said the government accepted that it could not prevent the Sharifs from returning but suggested they could face legal action on Pakistani soil. "Let them come and the law will take its own course," he said. He asked the court to dismiss the petition and not to interfere in an arrangement that involved another state, Saudi Arabia.

At one point, government lawyer Ibrahim Satti drew indignation from the judges for suggesting that Sharif's rights were still limited by a state of emergency declared back in 1998. Qayyum hastily asked for an adjournment and came back with a denial that any emergency powers were in force. "The country is not under any emergency and all the citizens have full, fundamental rights available to them under the constitution."