NAB clears Shahid Khaqan Abbasi in LNG case
- By Farrukh Ijaz -
- Apr 30, 2024
ISLAMABAD: The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) on Tuesday gave a clean chit to former prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, ex-finance minister Miftah Ismail, Chairman Engro Hussain Dawood and Board member Abdul Samad Dawood, and others in the Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) reference, ARY News reported
The development comes after the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) withdrew the graft reference against the former prime minister, who has since long been calling for abolishing the anti-corruption watchdog over political victimization.
نیب نے شاہد خاقان عباسی کیخلاف ریفرنس واپس لے لیا#ARYNews pic.twitter.com/eLBRUYmCeb
— ARY NEWS (@ARYNEWSOFFICIAL) April 30, 2024
The Accountability Court (AC) judge Nasir Javed Rana heard the case as Abbasi appeared before the court along with his lawyers.
During the hearing, NAB Deputy Prosecutor Azhar Maqbool told court that the bureau was withdrawing the reference against the former prime minister and others.
“The NAB is withdrawing the reference against Shahid Khaqan Abbasi,” he said.
The case
Former prime minister Abbasi, Miftah Ismail, ex-PSO MD Imranul Haq and others were facing charges of corruption over awarding LNG import contract allegedly at exorbitant rates in 2015, which caused a big loss to the national exchequer.
In 2019, NAB Rawalpindi filed a reference in the Liquefied Natural Gas import contract case against 10 accused, including former prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, former finance minister Miftah Ismail and former Pakistan State Oil managing director Sheikh Imranul Haq.
NAB claimed that the former premier awarded the LNG Terminal-1 contract through a non-transparent process and the accused public office holders misused their authority in connivance with other accused to ensure wrongful gains to the EETL/ETPL/ECL amounting to Rs14.146 billion.
The reference further alleged that the accused caused a loss of an estimated Rs7.438 billion for non-utilization of unused capacity of the second LNG terminal of PGPL (Pakistan GasPort Limited) from March 2015 till September 2019.
The case was heard by an accountability court in Islamabad, and in 2020, Abbasi was arrested by NAB and later released on bail.