Dr Asim departs for London after top court's green signal

KARACHI: Close aide of ex-President Asif Ali Zardari and former Petroleum Minister Dr Asim Hussain on Sunday left for London via an international flight, ARY News reported.

Earlier today, he had reached Jinnah International Airport here to depart for London to undergo medical treatment.

Suffering setbacks time and again, Pakistan Peoples’ Party (PPP) Karachi president Dr Asim Hussain’s name was finally removed from the Exit Control List (ECL) after Supreme Court on August 29 granted him permission to travel abroad for a month to undergo medical treatment while hearing his plea.

Asim’s name had been placed on the ECL since November 2015 for facing corruption references filed by National Accountability Bureau (NAB).

He had then petitioned High Courts to have travel restrictions on him removed so that he could undergo disc replacement surgery in London as, according to him, the treatment of such an ailment was not possible in Pakistan.

RELATED: Dr. Asim seeks exclusion of his name from ECL in another plea

Dr Asim’s counsel, Barrister Latif Khosa had been contending during court proceedings that his name was placed on the ECL without any plausible reason only to deter his client from undergoing medical treatment abroad.

It merits to mention here that Dr Asim was granted bail in two references filed by NAB on March 29 by Sindh High Court (SHC) on the medical ground.

Earlier, the anti-graft watchdog had said that the former petroleum minister had allegedly misused his powers by getting plots allotted fraudulently, encroaching state land for expansion of Dr. Ziauddin Hospital/ money laundering, kickbacks, illegal gains, receiving commission through fertiliser cartel for illegal curtailment of gas for exploitative price and defrauding people in the name of charity hospital.

The NAB had alleged that he had deprived public exchequer of Rs 462 billion.