Wed 30 December 2020:
Pakistan has today said it will cancel former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s passport on February 16.
Nawaz Sharif, 70, the chief of Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N) and has been living in London since November, 2019 after the Lahore High Court granted him permission to go abroad for four weeks for medical treatment.
The three-time former prime minister, who was convicted in two corruption cases — Avenfield properties and Al-Azizia — was declared a proclaimed offender earlier this month by the Islamabad High Court after he failed to appear before it despite several warnings.
“(We) will cancel Nawaz Sharif’s passport on February 16,” Interior Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed told reporters in Islamabad.
He, however, did not provide any further details.
Prime Minister Imran Khan in October said he would contact British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, if needed, to discuss his deportation and his adviser Akbar wrote a letter to British Home Secretary Priti Patel on October 5 urging her to deport the former premier whom he said is “responsible for pillaging the state”.
Meanwhile, Adviser to the Prime Minister on Accountability and Interior, Mirza Shahzad Akbar, said Pakistan had asked the British authorities to deport Nawaz Sharif who has been convicted by the courts.
Pakistan currently has no extradition treaty with Britain.
Prime Minister Imran Khan in October had said he would contact his British counterpart Boris Johnson, if needed, to discuss Nawaz Sharif’s deportation.
Nawaz Sharif resigned as Pakistan Prime Minister in 2017 after the Supreme Court disqualified him from holding any public office and ruled that graft cases be filed against the beleaguered leader and his children over the Panama Papers scandal.
Journalists and rights groups in the last few years have criticised the policies of the British government, which they say have made the UK “a safe haven for corrupt wealth”.
Transparency International had called for the British government to launch an investigation into Nawaz’s London properties in 2018 when he was convicted in the Avenfield case and subsequently sentenced for 10 years.
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