Sub-committee meets before Pak Cabinet's decision on Nawaz Sharif's travel abroad

A special sub-committee was meeting on Tuesday before the Pakistan Cabinet's decision on former prime minister Nawaz Sharif's travel abroad for medical treatment.

The 69-year-old Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) supremo agreed on Friday to go to the UK for treatment, heeding doctors' advice and accepting his family's request. He was scheduled to leave for London on a Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) flight on Sunday morning. However, he could not leave as his name figured in the no fly-list (Exit Control List-ECL).

The government could not remove Sharif's name from the no fly-list as the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) chairman, Javed Iqbal, was not available to issue a no objection certificate.

Minister for Law Farogh Naseem was chairing the meet attended by Special Assistant to Prime Minister Imran Khan on Accountability Shahzad Akbar and the interior secretary.

Sharif's personal physician Adnan Khan and a lawyer Attaullah Tarar as well as representatives of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) were also attending the meeting to brief the committee about their respective positions on the issue.

The meeting was tasked to give proposals after NAB, the anti-corruption watchdog, refused to decide whether Sharif's name should be removed from the no-fly list.

NAB's refusal forced the government to settle the issue in the Cabinet meeting being held later on Tuesday. But before the cabinet meeting, the sub-committee would firm up its proposal on the issue on the basis of legal and medical grounds.