Prime Minister Imran Khan on Thursday said that allowing former premier Nawaz Sharif to leave the country was a “mistake” and that his government “regretted” the decision.
In a wide-ranging interview to ARY News on Thursday night, the prime minister hinted that the government was pressurised into sending Nawaz abroad, saying that the reports presented to the government suggested that the PML-N supremo was severely ill.
The federal cabinet, he said, had held a long debate over whether the government should let Nawaz leave on humanitarian grounds.
Furthermore, the prime minister added, the court had declared that the government would be responsible, should anything happen to Nawaz. The premier also recalled that PML-N president Shehbaz Sharif submitted indemnity bonds worth Rs7 billion, promising Nawaz would return to the country.
“Now we feel embarrassed. Now he [Nawaz] has started doing politics [from] there as well and, when you see him, it seems like there is nothing [wrong] with him.
“We did not give and NRO, we tried our best to do what we could, but the medical opinion presented to us was that if we didn’t do anything, he [Nawaz] could die, that he might not even reach London. This is what we were told and after that we would have been held responsible. So after that we sent him in good faith.”
