Run Nawaz run!

Getting away with murder is truly applicable to so many things happening around us where crooks keep churning out variety of tricks on a regular basis. But the crudeness of it all is making us feel incapable of being sophisticated in any matter.

Mediocrity seems to be unbounded in any political dispensation. Abnormal events keep happening – some to the amusement and some to the horror of the people.

This time, it’s an Indian American cardiologist who has entered the Sharif’s circus and written a bespoken letter purporting to be a medical report. It’s not new though. We had previously one man on the run who ended up hiring a doctor in the US to vouch for his mental illness resulting in parrying the criminal court summons. He later became the President of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan.

There’s something about the US that’s not there in Britain. One felt close to home when President Donald Trump refused to accept the results of the presidential elections and attacked the Capitol. There’s a book where Trump’s golfer buddies have written about him being a compulsive cheat. Despite this, he has a large following in the US. I have no doubt that if he ever needed a medical certificate to ditch a Pakistani court summons, he would have plenty of doctors signing for his non-existent morbidities.

Looking back just six months, I wonder if the US surgeon who performed laparoscopy for my meniscus repair in Houston, could oblige me, on demand, with a letter saying I can’t travel until the Covid-19 pandemic is not gotten rid of! You pay for everything over there, but could he write this for me? I wonder. Well, I got my physiotherapy sessions for free as a quid pro quo, for Nadia, my lawyer daughter, promising the Physiotherapy Clinic to send them clients for therapy. C’est déjà vu n’est-ce pas?

I have no reason to doubt the competence and vast experience of Dr Fayaz Shawl, the eminent professor of cardiology from US. It’s his TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN letter that somehow reminds us of Zardari’s dementia diagnosis by his fellow US doctor and is causing quite a bit of concern. I can’t comment on its contents, because it’s the property of the Lahore High Court in the pending matter of Nawaz Sharif’s parole – but placing a ban on his air travel due to his illnesses like previously treated heart conditions, diabetes and above all stress (not platelets by the way) – bothers me.

There’s quite a lot of things common between me and Mian Muhammad Nawaz Sharif. We are only 20 days apart in age. He’s younger. He loves food, so do I. He played cricket, so did I. He loves Hyde Park, so do I. He has diabetes, so do I. He’s got chronic kidney disease, so do I, but being senior I went through a renal transplant; blissfully he didn’t. The difference is that in the past two years despite my morbidities (the scary word simply meaning illnesses), I went abroad eight times and found the aviation sector of business more Covid-19 compliant than any other business in the world. Qatar Airways makes you wear the mask and a shield throughout the flight. Their flight attendants look like aliens wearing hazmat suits with masks and shields. You can only tell the gender when they speak. Almost all new aircrafts are 99% virus-proof.

The Lahore High Court had released Nawaz Sharif on parole asking his brother to vouch for his return after treatment abroad for his low platelets. It must be the most unique order anywhere in the world where a convicted prisoner, after spending a year of a decade long sentence, flies out of the country in a private air ambulance and doesn’t give a toss to the order because he is quite sanguine about the availability of such medical reports. However, the breach of an undertaking carries serious consequences in English law and if given under court’s order, becomes a term of the order.

The trouble doesn’t lie with one party alone. The saga of Nawaz Sharif’s “Escape from Alcatraz” exposed our weaknesses at all levels. The former Prime Minister taking oath of office while holding a resident permit of another country and concealing it. The trial judge in his sentence, inter alia, fined “the family” 10 million pounds sterling! How could he fine the family and in Pakistan use foreign currency as fine, are enigmas that we’ll have to live with. Equally, we’ll have to live with the jugglery of the platelet counts of poor Mr Sharif. We thought the appeal lodged by Nawaz Sharif et al will never see the light of day, but it did. However, our puzzles continue to compound when, dismissing the appeal, the High Court leaves a window of hope open for Nawaz Sharif to feel free to file the appeal again once in Pakistan. What happened to the law of limitations?

I vividly remember the video footage of OJ Simpson, the US national football hero, actor and TV celebrity whose white Bronco was chased by LA police. The police had attempted to arrest Simpson at the home of his friend and lawyer, Robert Kardashian, but they found that Simpson had slipped out the back door with his former college and Buffalo Bills teammate Al Cowlings. The two men had then driven off in Cowlings’ white Ford Bronco.

The famous car chase became history when public came out to watch and support OJ Simpson by cheering him in typical American style and shouting, “RUN OJ RUN”! I am sure Dr Fayaz Shawl remembers those scenes.

The writer is a former Senator and practices law in England and Pakistan