Pak PM tasks authorities to ensure Nawaz Sharif's deportation from UK at earliest: Report

Pakistan has fast-tracked the process to bring back Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N) leader Nawaz Sharif from London, where he had been staying since November 2019 on medical grounds.

Prime Minister Imran Khan on Tuesday tasked relevant authorities with bringing back Sharif at the earliest. The decision was taken during a cabinet meeting where the prime minister also issued the directive to pursue the matter vigorously.

A cabinet member told Dawn the government had already sent a request to the British government for the PML-N leader's repatriation but it would now send a fresh application.

He said besides a normal application, a formal request for his extradition would also be made. "Although we have no extradition treaty with the United Kingdom, wanted people can be repatriated under special arrangements as we had also handed over some people to the UK," the cabinet member said.

Last week, the IHC Tuesday came down heavily on the Imran Khan-led government that it allowed former Sharif to go abroad without informing the court and it was up to the dispensation to take steps for ensuring the latter's return to the country.

Sharif left Pakistan for the United Kingdom for medical treatment in November last year.

Additional Attorney General Tariq Mehmood Khokhar told a bench comprising Justices Aamer Farooq and Mohsin Akhtar Kay that Pakistan's Foreign Office implemented the court-issued non-bailable arrest warrants without delay through the Pakistan High Commission in the UK on September 17, Geo News reported.

Meanwhile, PML-N president Shahbaz Sharif was arrested in a money laundering case on Monday from the Lahore High Court. The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) officials took him into custody from the premises after his bail plea was rejected on account of alleged money-laundering and maintaining assets beyond known sources of income, according to Gulf News.

( With inputs from ANI )