Islamabad, Sept. 13 (PTI): The Pakistan government has barred former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif from contesting elections, saying that he has already been convicted and sentenced in preventing Pervez Musharraf’s plane from landing in October 1999, the attorney-general, Mallik Qayyum, said.

Therefore, Sharif, the leader of the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz), is not eligible to participate in the elections scheduled to be held at the end of the year, Qayyum was quoted by the media as saying. Sharif was deported to Jeddah in Saudi Arabia on Monday after he arrived in Islamabad from London to end his seven-year exile.

The government also informed an anti-corruption court in Rawalpindi that graft cases against Sharif need not be pursued as the former Prime Minister was no longer in the country. In another development, the supreme court has not yet given a date for hearing the two petitions filed by Sharif’s family questioning his deportation.

Sharif’s brother Shahbaz, who had initially announced that he, too, would return home on September 10 but changed his mind at the last minute, has decided to take disciplinary action against local party leaders for not mobilising enough supporters at the airport to give a warm welcome to the former Prime Minister.