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.
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Prime Minister Imran Khan is "the biggest opponent" of the idea of allowing Sharif a passage to a foreign country. Khan offered Sharif to return the looted money by striking a plea bargain with national anti-graft body and leave the country.
The sources said the mother of Sharif had been asked to convince her son to leave' the country. But Sharif has categorically said that he has nothing to lose and he will not cut a deal.
"His wife is no more, his sons are living in exile, his daughter is in jail and he is portrayed as a thief in the worst kind of trial by media he asks what else there is for him to lose, he said.
PML-N's Information Secretary Marriyum Aurangzeb has dismissed deal' reports. "The supreme leader of PML-N had returned to Pakistan along with his daughter Maryam clearly knowing that he was going to jail in the Al-Azizia Mills case, leaving behind his beloved wife on death bed for the rule of law and respect to the ballot," Aurangzeb said.
The government ministers, however, say that Sharif is eager to cut a deal but Prime Minister Khan is not willing.