Pakistan seeks ex-premier’s deportation from UK

KARACHI, Pakistan

Pakistan’s government has asked the United Kingdom to deport the country’s three-time Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, who is in London for medical treatment, a minister said on Tuesday.

Shahzad Akbar, the minister for accountability, told reporters in the capital Islamabad the government had dispatched a letter to the British government seeking the deportation of the former premier.

Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi, while replying to a reporter’s question at a news conference, confirmed the development without providing further details.

The move came a day after the government of first-time Prime Minister Imran Khan filed a fresh case against Sharif accusing him of illegally keeping the vehicles gifted by foreign states and dignitaries.

Last week, the government had rejected Sharif’s request for extension in his bail period following the recommendations of an official medical board that declared the ex-premier’s medical reports “incomplete” and “unsatisfactory”.

Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, a former Prime Minister, and vice-president of Sharif’s center-right Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz), condemned the government’s decision terming it “political victimization”.

Speaking to reporters, Abbasi who served as premier for eight months -- from August 2017 to May 2018 -- said that Sharif had gone abroad for medical treatment after court’s permission.

“The government has no right to [forcibly] bring him back. It will be decided only by the court,” he went on to say.

The government, for its part, argued that Sharif had been in London on bail for over three months but neither he was admitted to any hospital nor did he update the government about his treatment.

Sharif, who has already been disqualified and sentenced to 17 years in jail in two corruption cases that stemmed from the 2016 Panama papers, is currently in London for medical treatment. He is out on bail.