Former Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was sentenced on Friday to 10 years in jail over corruption charges, lawyers said. Lawyers said Sharif had also been fined eight million pounds ($10 million) and that the court had ordered the federal government to confiscate the high-end properties in Londons exclusive Mayfair neighborhood. The verdict deals a serious blow to his partys troubled campaign ahead of July 25 elections and could be a potentially significant boost for the main opposition party led by former World Cup cricketer Imran Khan. It also immediately raised questions over whether Sharif will return to Pakistan from London, where his wife is receiving cancer treatment. Pakistan has no extradition treaty with the UK. Sharif was ousted from his third term as prime minister by the Supreme Court last year following a corruption investigation and banned from politics for life, but remains a powerful symbol for his ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N). Speaking at a press conference in London, Sharif framed the charges against him as a conspiracy by the powerful military, which has ruled Pakistan for roughly half its 70-year history. Without setting a date, Sharif said he would return to Pakistan from London after tending to his wife, Kulsoom. “As soon as she gains consciousness, and I talk to her, I will go back,” Sharif told media in London. “I will continue my struggle even in the jail.” He also urged his supporters to vote for his party at upcoming national elections later this month. Small protests broke out after the verdict at the court in Islamabad, which was surrounded by heavy security, and in some other Pakistani cities including Multan in Punjab, Sharifs provincial stronghold. "We reject this decision," his brother Shahbaz Sharif, who is leading the PML-N into Pakistans second ever democratic transition of power, told a televised press conference in Lahore. Khan for his part greeted the verdict with jubilation at a campaign rally in the Swat valley in Pakistans northwest. "Today all Pakistanis must offer thanksgiving prayers because today is the beginning of a new Pakistan. Now robbers will not go into assemblies, but to jails," he told a roaring crowd of thousands. The guilty verdict in absentia against Sharif, 68, threatens to end the career of one of Pakistan’s most high-profile politicians of the last four decades, a political survivor who was prime minister three times. Sharif’s daughter, Maryam, widely seen as his chosen political heir, was sentenced to seven years in prison and is disqualified from contesting the elections. Maryam’s husband and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) lawmaker Muhammad Safdar was handed a year in jail. Both Sharif and his daughter Maryam, who is also currently in London, denied wrongdoing and will appeal the decision, said Sharif ally Tariq Fazal Chaudhry.