Pakistan's former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, his daughter and son-in-law were released from prison Wednesday after a court suspended their sentences and granted them bail pending their appeals hearings, the AP reports. The Islamabad High Court made the decision after the Sharifs petitioned to appeal their sentences, which were handed down by an anti-graft tribunal earlier this year in a corruption case against them. The three were released from a prison in the garrison city of Rawalpindi. Prosecutors in the case, the National Accountability Bureau, said they would appeal Wednesday's ruling and take the case against Sharif to the country's Supreme Court. The development is the latest twist in a series of scandals involving the former prime minister, beginning with his ouster from office last year, to several corruption cases and trials he still faces.
In July last year the Pakistani Supreme Court disqualified Sharif from office over corruption allegations. He faced several court cases at home and was later convicted of concealing assets abroad. The charges stemmed from leaked papers from a Panama law firm. Sharif faced two more cases before the anti-graft tribunal and has been banned for life from public office. When the anti-graft tribunal first convicted and sentenced Sharif this July, he was in London with his daughter, visiting his critically ill wife. The father and daughter returned home a week later and were taken to prison to serve their sentences; Sharif's wife died while they were in prison following a long battle with cancer, and Sharif was temporarily released earlier this month to attend her funeral. Sharif's party, the Pakistan Muslim League, meanwhile, lost in parliamentary elections later in July and has now taken on the mantle of opposition party to new Prime Minister Imran Khan's government.
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