Pakistan's exiled prime minister Nawaz Sharif has been banned from any political activity during his stay in Saudi Arabia, Emirati news agency WAM reported Tuesday.
"Nawaz Sharif will not exercise any political activity during his stay in Saudi Arabia," expected to last 10 years, a Saudi official told the official news agency.
He said Sharif was now "a guest of Saudi Arabia, his second homeland."
The Saudi government will "provide him with a home worthy of a former prime minister who had good relations with Saudi Arabia, and he will receive medical care in one of the biggest hospitals in the kingdom."
Sharif was freed from a Pakistani jail on Sunday and flown to the Saudi city of Jeddah, accompanied by his family.
Saudi Arabia said King Fahd had offered Sharif asylum on humanitarian grounds, after the former premier's wife said he was suffering from heart problems.
"The choice of Saudi Arabia ... is a guarantee he will not take part in political activities hostile to the military regime in Islamabad, something the kingdom cannot tolerate on its territory," a diplomatic source in Riyadh told AFP.
Pakistani President Mohammad Rafiq Tarar pardoned Sharif from serving the rest of his lengthy sentences on hijacking and tax evasion charges for which he was jailed earlier this year -- RIYADH (AFP)
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