ISLAMABAD:
An accountability court in Islamabad today suspended a non-bailable arrest
warrant of Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, a senior PML-N leader, and former prime
minister, in an LNG corruption reference.
On Tuesday, the court first issued non-bailable for Abbasi and Uzma Khan for
not appearing in court.
However, later on, the accountability court suspended Shahid Khaqan Abbasi’s
arrest warrant when he appeared in the court along with his lawyer in the afternoon.
Earlier, an accountability court today issued a non-bailable arrest warrant
for PML-N leader and former prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi and Uzma
Khan in the LNG case.
PML-N leader neither appeared in the court on Tuesday nor filed an exemption
from appearance. Resultantly the court issued a non-appearance warrant for
Abbasi.
Judge Nasir Javed of the accountability court also issued a non-bailable arrest warrant for Uzma Adil Khan, co-accused in the case. Uzma is the former chairperson of the Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (OGRA).
In 2019, the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) arrested Shahid
Khaqan Abbasi for his alleged involvement in corruption. Abbasi was
arrested for awarding a multi-billion rupee contract for LNG import in 2013. At
that time he was the federal minister for petroleum and natural resources.
On July 28, 2020, the NAB chairman Javed Iqbal approved a reference against
Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, his son Abdullah Khaqan Abbasi, Miftah Ismail, former
finance minister, 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 NAB accused them of awarding the contract of LNG Terminal-1 in a
non-transparent process.
In this case, the accused gave a wrongful benefit of Rs14.14 billion to
EETL/ETPL/ECL in LNG Terminal-1 of EETL. Thus, they caused a loss of Rs7.43
billion for the non-utilization of unused capacity of the second LNG Terminal
of PGPL. This was done from March 2015 to September 2019.
According to NAB’s probe, this deal would cause further losses for the next
10 years, amounting to Rs47 billion. The contract will expire in March 2029.
