'Jailed Sharif will not cut any deal to leave Pakistan'

Lahore: Pakistan's jailed former prime minister Nawaz Sharif would not make any deal with the establishment to leave the country as he did in 2000 with the then military ruler Gen Pervez Musharraf when he left for Saudi Arabia on exile, PML-N party sources said Friday.

Sharif, who is serving seven-year imprisonment in a corruption case told this to his younger brother and PML-N president Shahbaz Sharif who called on him on Thursday at the Kot Lakhpat jail, party sources told PTI.

In early 2000, Sharif made a deal with then Musharraf and left for Saudi Arabia on exile till he returned in 2007.

There have been speculations in the local media about a possible deal with the establishment that Sharif may leave for London for few years.

There are reports that emissaries had been sent to call on Sharif in jail in recent days. A property tycoon recently called on Sharif in jail and conveyed to him that it is in the best interest of everyone that he and his daughter Maryam Nawaz leave the country, to return at the right time.

The same gentleman had earlier carried the message of an 'important person' to Sharif to step down as premier, the party source said.

Sharif, 69, has been serving a seven-year prison term at the Kot Lakhpat Jail in Lahore since December 24, 2018 when an accountability court convicted him in one of the three corruption cases filed in the wake of the apex court's July 28, 2017 order in Panama Papers case.