Musharraf boarded an Emirates flight bound for Dubai that departed from Karachi airport at 3.55 am.
The government, in the light of Supreme Court’s verdict, dropped the name of former president from the ECL, of which the formal notification was also issued on Thursday evening.
A large convoy of police and paramilitary rangers left Musharraf’s home in Karachi around 3.30 am as a decoy to waiting media crowding his street, while the general travelled to the airport separately.
Lawyers for the former president, who is facing multiple charges including treason and murder over the assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, have said he needs urgent medical treatment not available in Pakistan.
“I am going abroad for treatment but will return to face the cases against me,” a party spokesman in Karachi quoted him as saying. “I am a commando. I love my motherland.”
The ex-president will undergo medical treatment in Dubai. He had filed pleas in court seeking medical treatment abroad and removal of his name from the ECL. After months of legal battle, the former dictator was allowed the former dictator to fly abroad, and also remarked that the final decision rested with the federal government.
Following the issuance of the notification, airport authorities were also informed about the development.
Musharraf was banned from leaving Pakistan in March 2013 after he returned to the country on an ill-fated mission to contest elections.
The former ruler was barred from taking part in the polls and instead faces a barrage of legal cases.
In January, Musharraf was acquitted over the 2006 killing of a Baloch rebel leader Nawab Akbar Bugti.
But four cases against him remain — one accusing him of treason for imposing emergency rule, as well as those alleging the unlawful dismissal of judges, the assassination of opposition leader Bhutto and a deadly raid on Islamabad’s radical Red Mosque.
Last June, the Sindh High Court lifted Musharraf’s travel ban, but the federal government, headed by his long-time rival Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, appealed the verdict.
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