In the LNG terminal case, a federal court in the country’s capital issued a non-bailable arrest warrant for former premier and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader Shahid Khaqan Abbasi.
According to reports, Nasir Javed of the accountability court issued the warrants following Shahid Khaqan Abbasi‘s absence from today’s LNG hearing.
The court also issued an arrest warrant for Uzma Adil Khan, a former OGRA official who is a co-accused in the case, which is not bailable.
In 2019, the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) arrested Shahid Khaqan Abbasi for alleged corruption while awarding a multi-billion rupee import contract for LNG in 2013 when he was the minister for petroleum and natural resources.
On July 28, 2020, the NAB chairman approved a supplementary reference against Abbasi, his son Abdullah Khaqan Abbasi, former finance minister Miftah Ismail, ex-chairman of SSGC Board, former CEO of EETPL and MD of PSO, ex-chairman of Port Qasim Authority (PQA) Agha Jan Akhtar, former chairman of OGRA Saeed Ahmed Khan, ex-member of OGRA Aamir Naseem, Uzma, ex-MD of Pakistan State Oil (PSO) Shahid M Islam, chairman of Engro Corporation Limited Husain Dawood, director of Engro Corporation Limited Abdul Samad Dawood, and others.
The allegation was that the accused, through a non-transparent process, was awarded the LNG Terminal-1 contract.
The public office holders were accused of misusing their authorities in active connivance with each other to give wrongful gains of Rs14.146 billion to EETL/ETPL/ECL in connection with LNG Terminal-1 of EETL and also caused a wrongful loss of Rs7.438 billion, approximately, for non-utilization of unused capacity of second LNG Terminal of PGPL from March 2015 to September 2019.
Hence, the total liability amounts to Rs21.584 billion, approximately, till September 2019.
To rebut the Dawn report; I simply cannot lend support to any draconian legislation. I told the journalists that I am not aware of any such defamation bill. I believe that Pakistan needs defamation laws with financial recourse to protect everyone from unsubstantiated accusations.
— Shahid Khaqan Abbasi (@SKhaqanAbbasi) February 4, 2023
