Washington: Former US President Bill Clinton saved Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif from hanging, in the aftermath of the bloodless coup in October 1999 in which General Pervez Musharraf seized power.
According to Clinton aides, the US President had serious apprehensions about the life and safety of the deposed Premier and had expressed his concerns to the Saudi Royal House and asked them to intervene with General Musharraf to set Sharif free, who had been charged with a range of 'grave crimes'.
While Clinton did not want to take the matter up one-on-one with General Musharraf, neither was he willing to go to Pakistan during his India visit the following year, because of the October 1999 coup.
It was only upon the intervention of the Saudi Royal House, which urged him not to leave out Pakistan when he went to India that Clinton hopped over to Islamabad for a brief period, of course, with certain conditions attached, like an unedited address to the people of Pakistan on PTV, which were all fulfilled.
According to The Daily Times, Clinton had also wished that he be not photographed with Musharraf.
In effect, Clinton’s intervention saw the Saudi Royal House negotiate a complicated deal with the Musharraf regime, which saw the deposed Nawaz Sharif and his family flown to safety to Saudi Arabia, the sources said.
They further said that had 9/11 not happened, the situation would have been quite 'different' from what it was today.
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