Sharif and his Family's Plea to Remove Names from ECL Rejected

The Pakistan government has rejected Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, his daughter and son-in-law's requests seeking removal of their names from the Exit Control List (ECL). Due to the presence of names in this list they are not able to fly abroad and leave Pakistan.

The decision to place the names of the Sharif family on ECL was taken on August 20 last year during a cabinet meeting chaired by Prime Minister Imran Khan.

Following this in October last year, Sharif, his daughter Maryam and son-in-law Mohammad Safdar had separately applied to the Interior Ministry seeking removal of their names from the ECL.

In their petitions, the trio had argued that the Exit from Pakistan Rules 2010 did not apply to them as they were not involved in any of the corruption, misuse of authority, terrorism or any conspiracy issues.

In Avenfield properties case on July 2018, the trio was arrested and sentenced to imprisonment. However, they were released from the jail after the Islamabad High Court suspended their sentence.

Again In December last year, the Accountability Court in Islamabad sentenced 69-year-old Sharif to seven years of rigorous imprisonment in the Al-Azizia Steel Mills graft case who is serving the sentence since then.