Ex-Pakistan PM Nawaz Sharif Is Off No-Fly List, Gets Green Passport With 10-Year Validity

Nawaz Sharif earlier had a diplomatic (red) passport with 5-yr validity, and there had been a controversy over its supposed renewal. The former PM's new passport was processed in the urgent category.

New Delhi: The name of Pakistan's former prime minister Nawaz Sharif has been removed from the exit control list (ECL), which deals with people who are not allowed to leave the country for various reasons. The new government led by his younger brother Shehbaz Sharif has issued him a green passport with a 10-year validity, Dawn reported Tuesday.

The former PM's new passport was processed in the urgent category, the report said, adding that the status of the passport, as of now, is “active” in the immigration and passports department’s system.

Nawaz Sharif earlier had a diplomatic (red) passport, and there had been a controversy over its supposed renewal. However, he chose to apply for an ordinary (green) passport, and it has now been issued to him, the Dawn report said, quoting an interior ministry official.

Then interior minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed had said in 2020 that Nawaz Sharif’s diplomatic passport would be cancelled on February 16, 2021.

Quoting a senior interior ministry official, the report also said Nawaz Sharif’s diplomatic passport did expire on February 16, 2021. A red passport with a five-year validity had been issued to him on February 18, 2016, and it was the same document that he had used for his travel to the United Kingdom.

According to the report, new PM Shehbaz Sharif ordered the issuance of a diplomatic passport to his elder brother even before he appointed his cabinet, so that the PML-N supremo could return to Pakistan.

The new Interior Minister, Rana Sanaullah, also said last week that Nawaz Sharif would be issued a diplomatic passport which was his "right". “It is unfortunate that a person who has been prime minister thrice is being deprived of national citizenship,” the interior minister had said.

The Islamabad High Court, however, dismissed a petition last week, ruling against the expected issuance of a diplomatic passport to him.

In October 2019, Nawaz Sharif was granted an eight-week bail on medical grounds, he was allowed to travel abroad for treatment for four weeks a month later. He has been in London, since.

Nawaz had filed an appeal with the British Immigration Tribunal last year in August, after the UK Home Department refused to extend his stay in London on “medical grounds” any further.