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Pakistan allows Musharraf to go abroad for treatment: minister

Xinhua, March 18, 2016 Adjust font size:

Pakistani government has allowed former President Pervez Musharraf to travel abroad for medical treatment, the country's Interior Minister said on Thursday.

The decision came a day after the Supreme Court of Pakistan ordered removal of a travel ban on Pervez Musharraf, enabling him to go out of the country.

"We have decided to permit Pervez Musharraf go out of the country for medical treatment in line with the court's verdict," Interior Minister, Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan said at a news conference in Islamabad.

Khan said Musharraf will return to the country within six weeks.

Reports had earlier suggested that Musharraf planned to depart for the United Arab Emirate late Wednesday. However, he could not leave the country as his name was on the list of those who cannot leave the country without gov't permission.

"We have removed Musharraf's name from the Exit Control List," the minister said.

The federal government earlier had banned Musharraf, who quit as president in 2008, from leaving the country as he faces several cases including high treason and the murder of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.

A special court, hearing treason case against Musharraf for abrogating the constitutions, had summoned him to personally appear on March 31, but it is unclear if he will return for appearance. The former president has been formally charged in the case.

Last month a local court in Islamabad had issued a non-bailable warrant for his arrest in a 2007 murder case of a religious cleric, Abdul Rashid Ghazi, who was killed in a security forces' raid on the Islamabad's Red Mosque that had killed nearly 90 students and 11 security men.

The former president was also charged in the murder case of former prime minister, Benazir Bhutto, who was killed in a suicide attack and gunshots in the garrison city of Rawalpindi. Musharraf has been formally indicted in the case.

A five-member bench of the Supreme Court ended a travel ban on the former president after his lawyers told the court that their client suffers from a "back pain" and his treatment is not available in Pakistan.

Musharraf, also former army chief, had dismissed the second government of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, in 1999.

He quit as the president in 2008 fearing a possible impeachment by the parliament and had gone out of Pakistan. He returned to the country from self-exile in 2013 to take part in parliamentary elections. However, the courts barred him from holding any public office.

Musharraf now heads a political party "All Pakistan Muslim League", or APML. Enditem