News @ 3 - 27th 2017

ISLAMABAD: After issuance of bailable warrants for his arrest, former prime minister Nawaz Sharif has now decided to return home on Oct 29.

Quoting sources, ARY News reported, the former prime minister will land in Lahore on Oct 29 and proceed to the capital city on Nov 2 ahead of his scheduled hearing in an accountability court on Nov 3.

This is the fourth time that his plans to return to Pakistan from London, where he has been staying for more than two weeks to look after his ailing wife Begum Kulsoom Nawaz, have changed.

On Oct 23, the former prime minister left London to appear before the court on October 26. He made a stopover in Saudi Arabia to perform Umrah along with his mother.

He was to board a flight for Pakistan, but had to return to London after the condition of his ailing wife deteriorated.

Sources said Sharif during his brief stopover in Riyadh met with his Saudi friends to win their support in the wake of challenges he had been facing at home since his disqualification.

On Thursday, the accountability court had issued bailable warrants for his arrest in two references after he failed to show up before it. It had dismissed his application seeking exemption from personal appearance before it.

Sharif and his sons – Hussain and Hassan – have been named in three corruption references, while his daughter Maryam and her husband retired Captain Safdar have been named in single graft reference related to the family’s London flats.