Sharif Gets Another 14 Years

Already serving two life terms, deposed Premier Nawaz Sharif was sentenced again Saturday—this time to 14 years in prison for tax evasion.

The penalty, which included being barred from politics for 21 years, was handed down by a special anti-corruption court set up by the military rulers who toppled Sharif's government.

Sharif, who received life sentences for convictions in hijacking and terrorism cases, has maintained his innocence of all charges.

Sharif, who was ousted in October in a military coup led by Gen. Pervez Musharraf, is appealing his two life convictions. But if he's successful, he would still face jail on the tax conviction.

Saturday's conviction of Sharif for failing to declare a helicopter on his tax forms was seen as carrying out Musharraf's promise to punish corruption at every level.

The special anti-corruption courts were set up by Pakistan's military rulers, who threw out Sharif's government in a bloodless coup, charging unbridled corruption and economic mismanagement.

"I was expecting the verdict," said a defiant Sharif after the sentencing Saturday. "It is because of a personal vendetta that such a great injustice is being done to me."

He accused Pakistan's military leader Musharraf of crafting laws to keep him out of politics and in jail and of waging a witch hunt against him and his family.

"Every law has been made to get rid of me," he said. "This shows that Musharraf wants to single me out."

He has sharply criticized the military government's National Accountability Bureau and law under which he was tried.

But the government's prosecutor-general and author of the law Farooq Adam said Sharif's trial was "free and fair."

The military takeover in October was widely accepted in Pakistan because of the army's promise to root out corruption and revive the economy.

Since then scores of politicians, bureaucrats and leading businessmen have been arrested. Some have been charged and others are in jail while investigations into allegations of wrongdoing are investigated.

Corruption has been endemic in the nation of 140 million people where the average income is about $400 a year.

Sharif and Benazir Bhutto, who both dominated the last decade of Pakistani politics, have now both been implicated in corruption cases.

By AMIR ZIA