An accountability court of Islamabad has canceled non-bailable arrest warrants that it issued for PML-N's Shahid Khaqan Abbasi and former Ogra chairperson Uzma Adil Khan in the LNG terminal case.
The plea for the cancellation of the warrants was submitted by the former premier's lawyer, Zafarullah filed a request to cancel the warrants, on Tuesday.
Earlier today, Judge Nasir Javed issued the warrants for Abbasi after he failed to appear before the court during today's hearing.
Abbasi was detained in 2019 by National Accountability Bureau for allegedly engaging in corruption in 2013 when he was a minister of petroleum and natural resources, and awarded a multi-billion rupee import contract for LNG.
On July 28, 2020, NAB chairman approved a supplementary reference against Abbasi, his son Abdullah Khaqan Abbasi, former finance minister Miftah Ismail, ex-chairman of SSGC Board, former CEO of EETPL and MD of PSO, ex-chairman of Port Qasim Authority (PQA) Agha Jan Akhtar, former chairman of OGRA Saeed Ahmed Khan, ex-member of OGRA Aamir Naseem, Uzma, ex-MD of Pakistan State Oil (PSO) Shahid M Islam, and others.
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The allegation was that the accused awarded the contract for LNG Terminal-1 through an opaque method. The total liability amounts to Rs21.584 billion, approximately, till September 2019.
It is pertinent to mention here that further losses to be incurred for the next 10 years will amount to Rs47 billion, approximately, as the said contract will expire on March 2029.
Between 2013 and 2017, when the aforementioned LNG terminal transaction was finalised, Abdullah Abbasi got unexplained deposits totaling Rs1.426 billion and Shahid Khaqan Abbasi received deposits totaling Rs1.294 billion.
As per the reference filed against them, the accused also committed the offence of money laundering by hiding the origin of the above-mentioned deposits.
The PMLN leader had time and again denied committing any illegality in the award of the contracts for LNG import, saying he could prove his innocence at any forum.