SAMAA TV Islamabad bureau chief Khalid Azim said once Nawaz Sharif’s passport is cancelled, the legality of his stay in the United Kingdom becomes tenuous.
Home Minister Sheikh Rasheed announced on Wednesday that former premier Nawaz Sharif’s passport will be cancelled on February 16.
Addressing a press conference in Islamabad, the newly appointed home minister suddenly broke the news and then refused to comment further.
Why did he take an iqama (work permit) in the first place, he asked, adding that it seems Nawaz has no faith in his own country.
SAMAA TV Islamabad bureau chief Khalid Azim said once Nawaz’s passport is cancelled, the legality of his stay in the United Kingdom becomes tenuous.
Your visa is granted on your passport but once you don’t have a passport anymore, your legal stay becomes uncertain, he said.
Once a country withdraws or cancels its passport it says that this citizen is no longer a valid document holder, he explained. The UK doesn’t have an extradition treaty with Pakistan but once his passport is cancelled, it makes Pakistan’s petition for Nawaz’s deportation stronger.
We will now have to see what the UK does, he said.
Nawaz, a three-time former premier, is in the UK for medical treatment. He was sentenced to seven and 10 years in prison in the Al-Azizia Steel Mills and Avenfield flats references respectively. The former premier’s sentence in the Al-Azizia reference was suspended. He has filed an appeal seeking its annulment.
NAB has filed appeals to increase his sentence to 14 years in the Al-Azizia Steel Mills case. It seeks an end to the suspension of Nawaz’s sentence in the Avenfield case too.
In October 2019, the IHC had granted Nawaz bail on humanitarian grounds. The government allowed him to leave the country in November 2019 for medical treatment in London after his health deteriorated. He hasn’t returned since.
His bail expired in February. Last month, the IHC issued non-bailable arrest warrants for Nawaz. But the warrants were not received by the ex-premier.
Originally published at Samaa