A Division Bench of the Lahore High Court on Friday acquitted former premier Nawaz Sharif in the famous helicopter case and set aside his jail term and ban on contesting elections.

The case was registered soon after Sharif was toppled by the then army chief General Pervez Musharraf in October 1999. Sharif was accused of illegally buying a helicopter for the election campaign in 1997 in order to evade tax. An accountability court convicted him in July 2000 and sentenced him to 14 years imprisonment. He was also fined to pay Rs 50 millions and imposed a 21-year ban on contesting election to any public office.

The court rejected prosecution's plea that the petition was time barred, as Sharif did not file it for the next nine years. President Asif Ali Zardari has felicitated Sharif on his acquittal and expressed the confidence that he will play a positive role in national politics.

The acquittal brings Sharif closer to entering parliamentary politics by contesting a by-election from Lahore, which has been continuously deferred for the past one year. The last hurdle in this race is the plane hijacking case in which he was first sentenced to death by an anti-terrorist court that was later commuted to life imprisonment along with ban on contesting elections.

In the hijacking case, Sharif was accused of ordering hijacking of Musharraf's plane on the fateful day of October 12, 1999, after sacking him while he was returning to Karachi from Colombo. Musharraf's loyal generals staged a coup before his plane landed on Karachi airport.

The appeal in the hijacking case was heard by a 5-judge bench of the Supreme Court that reserved the judgement last week.

Washington, June 26
The United States has appointed Farah Pandith, a Kashmiri-origin woman, to reach out to the Muslim world, providing momentum to US President Barack Obama’s efforts for a “new beginning” with the community.

Pandith’s appointment was made early this week but the State Department communications staff failed to make the key nomination public.

State Department spokesman Ian Kelly told reporters yesterday that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton appointed Pandith, a Muslim, as a Special Representative to Islamic communities two days ago.

Kelly only released the information when journalists asked him during the daily media briefing about reports that a special representative for Muslim communities had been named.

“Yes,” he said.

“She's actually a friend of mine. I worked with her, Farah Pandith, very closely in the European Bureau. She was a special adviser for outreach to Muslim communities in Europe. The secretary has appointed her to more of a global role,” Kelly said.

In her capacity, Pandith would advance Clinton’s efforts to “engage with Muslims around the world on a people-to-people and organisational level”. — PTI

Tehran, June 26
Iran’s top legislative body today said it had found no major violations in the June 12 presidential election and called it the “healthiest” vote since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

“The Guardian council has almost finished reviewing defeated candidates’ election complaints ... the reviews showed that the election was the healthiest since the revolution ... There were no major violations in the election,” said Abbasali Kadkhodai, spokesman of the council.

The council had already rejected a call by moderate former Prime Minister Mirhossein Mousavi, declared second in the election behind incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, for the vote to be annulled.

Its statement is the latest step in a behind-the-scenes struggle since the election, which has split the clerical establishment into two camps.

The leadership has quelled mass protests over the election and hardline preacher Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami has urged the judiciary today to punish leading “rioters” without showing any mercy, state radio reported.

“I want the judiciary to ... punish leading rioters firmly and without showing any mercy to teach everyone a lesson,” Ahmad Khatami told worshippers at Tehran university.However, Mousavi said he was determined to keep challenging the election results despite pressure to stop. — Reuters