KARACHI, Pakistan — A provincial court on Monday overturned former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's guilty verdict on a terrorism charge but upheld a hijacking conviction that carries a life sentence.
The charges date back to Oct. 12, 1999, the day the army seized power in Pakistan, throwing out the elected government and jailing Sharif for refusing to allow an airplane to land with the army chief.
A special anti-terrorist court set up during Sharif's regime convicted him in April and sentenced him to two concurrent life terms.
In a 2-1 decision Monday, the provincial Sindh High Court agreed to the life sentence for hijacking, which means a minimum of 25 years in jail, and also upheld an $8.3 million judgment against him.
But the court overturned the terrorism sentence, and also denied a prosecution appeal to pursue the death penalty.
Sharif will appeal to the Supreme Court, his last avenue of appeal, said his wife, Kulsoom Sharif, who has been championing her husband's cause. Mrs. Sharif said the unsuccessful appeal was not a surprise.
"We don't expect justice," said Mrs. Sharif. "The judges are helpless in the present situation," a reference to the military rule in Pakistan.
It was not clear if the prosecution would also appeal.
Sharif was charged with refusing to allow the commercial airliner returning Pakistan's army chief Gen. Pervez Musharraf to land in southern Karachi. The aircraft, with more than 200 people on board, including 40 students of a U.S.-government-run school, eventually landed after the army took power. It had barely seven minutes of fuel remaining.
Sharif's six co-defendants in the case were acquitted.
Musharraf immediately took power when his aircraft landed.
Since then, his military government has arrested dozens of prominent politicians in all the major political parties, as well as bureaucrats and businessmen in an attempt to clean up corruption that has become endemic in this poor country of 140 million people.
The army has promised to return Pakistan to democracy by 2002, in line with a Supreme Court ruling that said Musharraf was justified in throwing out the civilian government but must return democratic rule.