ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was charged with corruption and deported to Saudi Arabia today, hours after he returned to Pakistan from a seven-year exile hoping to campaign against the country's U.S.-allied military ruler, officials said.

About four hours after he arrived on a flight from London, Sharif was arrested and charged, then spirited to another plane and sent to Jiddah, a close aide to President Gen. Pervez Musharraf said.

Sharif's deportation sidelines a powerful political enemy of the general, but it is likely to deepen Musharraf's growing unpopularity and reinforce public perceptions that he is an authoritarian ruler ahead of presidential and legislative elections.

It came despite a landmark Supreme Court ruling last month that the two-time former premier, whose elected government was ousted by Musharraf in a 1999 coup, had the right to return to Pakistan and that authorities should not obstruct him.

ROTHLEY, England — A British couple named as suspects in the disappearance of their 4-year-old daughter returned home on Sunday, and the mother told a newspaper that Portuguese police pressured her to confess that she had killed the girl ccidentally and hid the body.In a surprise twist in the four-month-old case, Gerry and Kate McCann were formally named suspects in their daughter Madeleine's disappearance Friday when police said they found traces of blood in the couple's car in southern Portugal, where they had been on vacation.After being interrogated separately for hours Saturday, the McCanns flew back to England with their 2-year-old twins and drove to their house in the village of Rothley, 100 miles north of London, escorted by police and met by scores of journalists.Gerry McCann said it was heartbreaking to come home without his daughter, despite an extensive effort to find her."It does not mean we are giving up the search for her," he said, his voice shaking.Addressing the police suspicions of him and his wife, he added: "We have played no part in the disappearance of our lovely daughter Madeleine."

VIENNA, Austria — Pope Benedict XVI, beset by drab weather and relatively small crowds, ended a pilgrimage to Austria on Sunday by reminding Europeans of their Christian heritage as they grapple with immigration and Islam.In a farewell speech, he urged Austrians "to bring the traditional values of the continent — values shaped by the Christian faith — to European institutions."Despite a chilly rainfall, about 15,000 people packed the square outside Vienna's St. Stephen's Cathedral for Sunday's papal Mass, according to official estimates. Another 12,000 cheering pilgrims flocked to an abbey on the outskirts of the capital to see the pope.But the turnout was low, considering 200,000 Viennese identify themselves as Catholics.It underscored Benedict's challenge not just in Austria but across an increasingly multicultural Europe, where many believers have become disillusioned and drifted away from the church.Benedict's three-day visit was a personal mission to woo them back. Yet throughout the weekend, uninterested passers-by were seen strolling nonchalantly past giant video screens showing the pontiff.