Govt stepping up efforts to bring back Nawaz: Shibli

ISLAMABAD: Information minister Shibli Faraz has announced that the government is intensifying efforts to repatriate former prime minister Nawaz Sharif and in that regard will ask the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) to approach the British government through the foreign ministry.

“We believe it is now necessary to bring back Nawaz Sharif,” Faraz said at a press conference on Friday, where he castigated the opposition and cast aspersions on the health of Sharif, who has been convalescing in London since November last year.

The minister said in the arrangement in which Sharif was allowed to leave the country, he was supposed to return in six months. “Nawaz Sharif left under the pretext of illness,” he said. “He is a master of this sort of thing,” he added, without elaborating further.

“Whoever is sought by the law, should be brought back,” the minister said. He added: “Those who are answerable should appear before the courts. The courts will decide.”

He also said the Islamabad High Court has ruled that “if you ask for bail, you should be here”. “The law will take its course. We have intensified our efforts,” the minister said, and then promising: “We will bring back Nawaz Sharif.” Ultimately, it is the job of the court to decide (on the matter), he said, but “we will facilitate it”.

“Nawaz Sharif has not submitted a single property for five or six years,” Faraz claimed. “These people have done a lot of damage to the country. The country is in debt,” the minister lamented.

Faraz also castigated the opposition for “saying from the beginning that the government has failed”. “The opposition is constantly blackmailing us, they are always asking for NRO,” the senator said. “Then they say ‘when did we ask for NRO?’”.

He also accused the opposition of trying to use Financial Action Task Force legislation to negotiate for an NRO. The NRO — the National Reconciliation Ordinance — was promulgated under former president Pervez Musharraf which gave legal amnesty to politicians and is used by government quarters as a euphemism for a deal.

“If the opposition does not support the FATF rules, then they are enemies of the country,” Faraz added.

The minister also criticised Sharif’s daughter, Maryam, and Pakistan Peoples Party Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari. “Who is Maryam Nawaz? She is not a political leader, she has inherited politics,” Faraz said. “If Bilawal is a great politician, then I am also a poet,” he added. Earlier in the day, railways minister Sheikh Rashid said the federal government would go to court to declare Sharif a fugitive in order to repatriate him.

Rashid was addressing the inauguration ceremony of a girls’ college here where he shared his views on the opposition, the government’s ongoing accountability drive and the opposition, in particular, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N).

“Maryam Nawaz is boxing Shahbaz Sharif into a corner,” Rashid said referring to the clash between PML-N workers and police outside the National Accountability Bureau’s (NAB) office in Lahore on August 11.

“Maryam Nawaz stoned Shahbaz Sharif’s politics, not the NAB,” he added. He also termed Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari “a child”.

The accountability drive will continue against the opposition, he said, claiming those who were speaking against the anti-corruption watchdog were themselves under investigation for graft.

He also said come what may, Prime Minister Imran Khan would not give an “NRO” (an amnesty) to anyone and the opposition will have to face trial in courts. He also said Punjab Chief Minister Usman Buzdar was “not going anywhere”.