ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP):

Defying a Supreme Court order, President Gen. Pervez Musharraf sent commandos to Islamabad airport yesterday and tossed out his archrival hours after he returned from a seven-year exile in hopes of a political comeback.

The expulsion of Nawaz Sharif, the Prime Minister Musharraf ousted in a 1999 coup, will deepen the general's unpopularity and could undermine the legitimacy of upcoming elections.

Money-laundering charges

Not long after he arrived from London to cheers from supporters on the plane, Sharif was charged with corruption and money-laundering and bundled away by police from the airport VIP lounge. Just four hours after landing in Pakistan, he was put on a special flight to Saudi Arabia. His unceremonious departure to the country where he was exiled in 2000 after the coup scuppered his plans for a grand homecoming to campaign against the U.S.-allied army chief's bid for election amid growing public resentment over military rule.

"Musharraf has probably taken a decision to twist any law to do what he can do to stay in power. This is the politics of survival," Rasul Bakhsh Rais, a political scientist at Lahore University of Management Sciences. "He is relying on strong-arm tactics, not the law and the constitution."