Three return tickets have been booked – for Nawaz, his brother Shehbaz Sharif and family physician Dr Adnan Khan – at Qatar Airways for a flight that will leave for London on Monday (tomorrow), according to The Express Tribune. The date of the return flight is November 27.
DESPARDES — Nawaz Sharif is likely to leave for London in a day or two for treatment after the government on Friday decided to remove his name from the no-fly list called ECL (Exit Control List).
The former prime minister was granted eight-week bail in the Al-Azizia corruption reference on health grounds last week.
A Sharif family source told Dawn they were making arrangements for Sharif’s travel to London after the family was informed by the government that removing his name from the Exit Control List (ECL) was a ‘mere formality’.
Speaking to Reuters on Thursday, foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said the government will allow Nawaz Sharif to leave the country for medical treatment in the United Kingdom, though he warned the former prime minister against seeking a second period of exile to escape corruption charges.
“Doctors are recommending that he perhaps needs to go abroad for further examination,” foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi told Reuters in an interview.
“If that is what medical treatment requires, the government has been positive. The prime minister has said everything possible should be done to show his life is protected.”
Three-time PM Sharif, 69, was released on bail from a seven-year sentence for corruption after repeated medical issues.
Sharif denies the corruption charges, claiming they are politically motivated.
He previously lived in exile in Saudi Arabia for seven years after being removed in 2000, though Qureshi urged Sharif to return to complete his sentence.
“If their hands are clean, why should they be running away?” he said of the possibility Sharif may seek a second period of exile.
“I hope he recovers. When he recovers, why should he be sticking around in London? There’s no logic, there’s no reason for that.”
Sharif’s party, the main opposition Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz), declined to comment on Qureshi’s remarks.
But two senior party figures who declined to be named, according to the news agency, said it was now likely that Sharif would travel abroad for treatment, adding that he would not seek exile for a second time.
The Sharif family’s source told the paper: “We are making arrangements for Mian sahib’s travel to London on Sunday. We are consulting doctors whether to take him on an air-ambulance or a regular PIA flight or a foreign airliner.”
He added that Shahbaz Sharif and the elder Sharif’s personal physician Dr Adnan Khan would accompany his patient (to London).
Three return tickets have been booked – for Nawaz, his brother Shehbaz Sharif and family physician Dr Adnan Khan – at Qatar Airways for a flight that will leave for London on Monday (tomorrow), according to The Express Tribune. The date of the return flight is November 27.
According to the paper, there has been much improvement in the platelet count of former prime minister, ahead of his expected departure for treatment abroad and the medical board examining his health condition is satisfied with it.
