Nawaz Sharif refuses to leave as govt asks for billions

ISLAMABAD: Former prime minister Nawaz Sharif got annoyed over the demand of the government to deposit surety bonds and refused to go abroad to get medical treatment for his critical ailments, sources told The News here Tuesday.

The federal cabinet Tuesday approved the removal of Nawaz Sharif’s name from the Exit Control List (ECL) if he agrees to sign surety bonds equivalent to theamount of penalty imposed by an accountability court. The accountability court in December last year convicted Nawaz in the Al-Azizia corruption reference and awarded him a seven-year imprisonment and imposed a fine of Rs1.5 billion and $25 million (Rs3.88 billion).

Later at night, the cabinet's subcommittee reserved its verdict on whether Nawaz Sharif's name will be taken out from the no-fly list or not. The subcommittee will announce its decision on Wednesday (today).

The federal cabinet will make the final decision. The subcommittee will only give recommendations to the cabinet, said Farogh Naseem while speaking to Geo News. "Nawaz Sharif is critical and the reports we saw, they had 'issues' in them," he said. Naseem said that it was Nawaz's choice whether he wanted to go abroad or not. He said that he could not comment on what advice the former prime minister had been given or what decision he would take regarding the issue.

"We have deposited security bonds at the court, will not provide any further bonds," said PML-N leader Ata Tarar. “The PML-N President Shahbaz Sharif held meeting with Nawaz Sharif for one-and-a-half hour at Jati Umra and convinced him that his deteriorating health condition never allowed him to remain in Pakistan,” the sources said. The Sharif family thought it advisable not to sign any document that had no legal status because this kind of arrangement could only be done by the court.

The sources said Attaullah Tarar, who attended couple of meetings of the sub-committee of the federal cabinet in the day time, provided details to Shahbaz Sharif and PML-N Vice-President Maryam Nawaz about demand of the government to deposit surety bonds.