Pakistan puts Nawaz Sharif’s brother Shehbaz on no-fly list

TIL Desk/World/Islamabad/ The Pakistan government led by Prime Minister Imran Khan on Monday added the name of Opposition leader Shehbaz Sharif, who has been charged with corruption, to the no-fly list, barring him from leaving the country for medical treatment.

Earlier this month, the Lahore High Court granted Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) president Shehbaz, also the younger brother of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, permission to travel abroad once for medical treatment.

After obtaining bail, Shehbaz, 69, was about to fly to London on 8 May when an Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) team at the airport stopped him from travelling on the grounds that his name had been on the provisional national identification list (PNIL), which impose a temporary bar on someone to leave the country. Shehbaz was offloaded from Doha-bound flight on 8 May.

Addressing a press conference here on Monday, interior minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said Shehbaz’s name was added to the exit control list (ECL) after approval from the federal cabinet. A special committee of the interior ministry on 12 May had proposed to the Cabinet that Shehbaz should be barred from leaving the country due to corruption cases against him.