Nawaz Sharif’s trial ends not with a bang but with two life sentences

When the Anti-Terrorism Court handed down its verdict on April 6 in the case of the six accused with former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, it did so without putting its foot in its mouth. This has been a sad tradition of Pakistani courts in the past. Judge Rahmat Husain Jaffery, however, managed to deliver a verdict that has spared Pakistan much turmoil, after a court case that has been relatively open in its proceedings and whose outcome is widely accepted as fair.

The court spared Nawaz Sharif’s life but handed him two life sentences to be served concurrently. More painfully, it ordered the confiscation of all his property. This will surely be welcomed by the people of Pakistan, who have seen their thieving rulers get away scot-free with the loot. The other six defendants— former PIA chairman Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, advisor to the prime minister Ghaus Ali Shah, Karachi police chief Maqbool Rana, Sharif’s principal secretary Saeed Mehdi, former Punjab chief minister Shahbaz Sharif (also Nawaz’s brother), and senator Saifur Rahman, former head of the accountability unit were acquitted and allowed to go free.

Nawaz Sharif and his fellow defendants were charged with hijacking the plane bringing the chief of army staff general Pervez Musharraf and 197 other passengers from Colombo, Sri Lanka to Karachi on the evening of October 12, the day of Pakistan’s coup. Sharif was accused of having ordered that the aircraft should not be permitted to land in Pakistan, even though it did not have fuel to fly to any other destination. Two hours earlier, general Musharraf’s dismissal as army chief had been announced on television and Nawaz Sharif’s favourite, general Ziauddin Butt, former chief of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) appointed to replace him. The army would have none of it. Still chafing from the resignation of the army chief Jahangir Karamat a year earlier, compounded by the Kargil fiasco, it was in no mood to countenance further interference from a meddling prime minister.

Ironically, the anti-terrorism courts were set up by Nawaz Sharif over the objection of some of his political allies. He had planned to use them to target his political opponents; they ended up sending him into a life of oblivion. Equally interesting is the fact that the court robbed Nawaz Sharif of the opportunity to obtain political martyrdom. A political light weight, he was the product of military rule. It was general Malik Ghulam Jilani, a former governor of the Punjab during general Zia’s military rule, who had requested Mian Mohammad Sharif, patriarch of the Sharif family, to spare one of his sons for politics. General Jilani was keen on Shahbaz Sharif, the younger but smarter of the two brothers. The senior Sharif sent Nawaz instead because he was less bright, and therefore considered not much use for the family’s business activities. Nawaz finally lived up to his dull reputation.

Twice elected prime minister through fraudulent elections — as was his nemesis, Benazir Bhutto — power ultimately went to his head. Even his close friends and allies began to resent his heavy-handed and brusque manner. Dismissing people contemptuously, he first took on the judiciary. The chief justice was hounded out of office through pressure from the military. Next, the president, Farooq Leghari was forced to resign. Then came the turn of the military chief, general Jahangir Karamat.

All these ‘victories’ went to his head, and Nawaz took on the one Pakistani institution which brooks little interference in its affairs; the sacking of one chief was all it was willing to accept. Nawaz badly miscalculated his own authority and cleverness. The army easily outsmarted him and brought his political career — at a relatively young age, for he is barely 50 — to an abrupt end. His chances of a return to active politics are very slight.

Four of the other six accused — Shahbaz Sharif, Saeed Mehdi, Khaqan Abbasi and Saifur Rahman — who were freed on hijacking charges were arrested by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) immediately they were released, and flown to Rawalpindi to face various corruption charges . According to reports, there is a list of some 2,500 politicians, bureaucrats and other officials who are on NAB’s target list to be charged with plundering the country’s resources and abusing their authority.

What Pakistan’s people want next is to see NAB proceed with its nabbing.