Former Pakistan premier Nawaz Sharif, recently buffeted by a controversy over receiving an alleged payoff from ISI, has been accused of "ordering the murder of an army officer" in a petition filed in the Supreme Court, a charge termed by his PML-N party as "politically motivated."

Freelance journalist Shahid Orakzai alleged in his petition that a sitting judge of the apex court had abetted Sharif in the murder of his brother, Major Khalid Saeed Orakzai, in 1993.

Orakzai further alleged in his petition, which was filed yesterday, that Sharif ordered the murder of his brother after a "political kickbacks deal" turned sour. The judge in question should be made a respondent in the case and stopped from performing his duties till the court gives its decision, he said.

"My brother was murdered because I went public with a kickbacks deal in 1993 and this annoyed Sharif and some senior PML-N leaders," Orakzai told by phone from his hometown of Peshawar.

The PML-N has dismissed the allegations. "This is a false and totally politically motivated accusation," said Ahsan Iqbal, the spokesman for the PML-N.

"This is only the latest in a series of recent accusations against Sharif. The presidency and hidden hands are trying to pressurise him into backing down on his demand for prosecuting former President Pervez Musharraf," Iqbal said.

Orakzai, who was a media consultant for Sharif in the early 1990s, said he had arranged a deal between Sharif's party, then known as the Pakistan Muslim League, and seven parliamentarians from the tribal areas to install the PML's candidate as speaker in the National Assembly.

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