Islamabad:
Former Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has been given a passport to return to his home country from the UK where he was seeking treatment, a media report said on Monday.
The 72-year-old three-time prime minister, against whom several corruption cases had been brought by the government of former Prime Minister Imran Khan, had left for London in November 2019 after the Lahore High Court gave him four weeks to go abroad for his treatment.
The Express Tribune newspaper reported that he has been given a passport by the new government headed by his younger brother, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.
The nature of the passport is “ordinary” and it was made in the “urgent” category, Geo News reported.
Sharif, who is Pakistan’s Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) supremo, met Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari in London last week and discussed the “overall political situation” in Pakistan and pledged to cooperate to issues of political and national interest.
The PPP and the PML-N – the two main political parties – alternated in power when the military failed to rule the country.
The mighty military has ruled the coup-prone country for more than half of its 75-plus years of existence.
Before flying to the UK in 2019, Sharif had made a commitment to the Lahore High Court to return to Pakistan, citing his track record to be able to travel within four weeks or once he is declared healthy and fit to travel. are being treated. by doctors.
He was also released on bail in the Al-Azizia Mills corruption case, in which he served a seven-year sentence at the maximum-security Kot Lakhpat prison in Lahore.