Opposition leader on Pakistan’s no-fly list
INTERIOR MINISTER: SHARIF BARRED FROM TRAVEL ABROAD OWING TO CORRUPTION CASES
PAKISTAN prime minister Imran Khan on Monday (17) added opposition leader Shehbaz Sharif’s name to a no-fly list, barring him from leaving the country for medical treatment.
Earlier this month, the Lahore high court granted permission to the Pakistan Muslim LeagueNawaz (PML-N) to travel abroad once for medical treatment.
After obtaining bail, Shehbaz, 69, who has been charged with corruption, was scheduled to fly to London on May 8.
However, a Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) team at the airport stopped him from travelling on the grounds that his name was on the provisional national identification list, which means a temporary bar is imposed on someone from leaving the country. Sharif was offloaded from a Doha-bound flight. He is the younger brother of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, who himself is in London, apparently seeking medical treatment.
Addressing a press conference in Islamabad, interior minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said Sharif’s name was added to the exit control list (ECL) after approval from the federal cabinet. A special committee of the interior ministry on May 12 had proposed to the cabinet that Sharif should be barred from leaving the country due to corruption cases against him. The minister said Sharif had not submitted any medical documents for travelling abroad or specified the treatment for his illness.
Last week, Sharif challenged the placement of his name on a travel blacklist and sought permission to go abroad for medical treatment. “I have been a cancer patient and got treated in New York and London. I could not get treatment for more than seven months as I was in jail,” the PMLN leader said, adding that in light of a medical test report conducted in jail, immediate treatment was necessary.
Ahmed said Sharif “was the guarantor for his brother Nawaz. But instead of bringing him back, he was trying to flee”.
“If Nawaz Sharif did not return, then why should Shehbaz return? This is a matter of common sense,” he said. Nawaz Sharif has been in London since November 2019 on “medical grounds”.
Khan’s government has declared the former prime minister
as an absconder his passport.
Nawaz Sharif left the country after the court granted him bail in a corruption case for which he was jailed for seven years in Lahore. He was also granted fourweek bail on medical grounds to have his treatment abroad.
Meanwhile, PML-N leader Azam Nazir Tarar said the party will file a case of contempt of court. “The government refused to let him (Shehbaz) go abroad despite orders by the Lahore high court,” Tarar said.
Several PML-N leaders have been facing corruption cases, which they claim, are politically motivated. On April 23, 2021, Shehbaz Sharif walked free from Lahore’s Kot Lakhpat jail after about eight months behind bars in a money laundering and assets beyond means reference filed by the country’s anti-corruption body.
The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) alleged that Shehbaz Sharif’s family had assets of around 16.5 million Pakistani rupees (about £77,000) till 1990, which increased to over 7 billion Pakistani rupees (£32m) in 2018 which were disproportionate to his known sources of income.
and
cancelled