Islamabad court cancels Shahid Khaqan Abbasi's arrest warrant in LNG case

ISLAMABAD: An accountability court in the federal capital cancelled on Tuesday an arrest warrant it had issued earlier in the day for former prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi in the LNG (liquefied natural gas) reference.

Accountability court judge Nasir Javed had released the warrant against the senior Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader for not filing an exemption application despite his absence from the case's hearing, earlier in the day. 

The court also issued a non-bailable arrest warrant for co-accused Uzma Adil, who is the ex-chairperson of the Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (Ogra).

The accountability court had summoned Abbasi in the LNG case today (Tuesday), but his lawyer did not appear in court on his behalf.

In 2019, the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) had arrested Abbasi for alleged corruption while awarding a multi-billion rupee import contract for LNG in 2013 when he was the minister for petroleum and natural resources.

Abbasi, in 2021, had been granted bail by an accountability court that ruled there was never any conflict over non-transparency in the LNG terminal case.

The court, in its detailed verdict on the bail, had said that the accountability watchdog’s case is not based on whether or not the former petroleum minister took financial benefit.

“There was no conflict over whether or not there was transparency in the LNG terminal case. The authorised forum gave the approval for the LNG terminal,” the court had said.

The court had said that whether the LNG terminal was developed in the interest of people or not needed further investigation.

“NAB has not been able to prove why there is a need to keep Shahid Khaqan Abbasi in jail,” the court had said.

The LNG reference

On July 28, 2020, the NAB chairman had 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.

The allegation was that the accused, through a non-transparent process, awarded the LNG Terminal-1 contract.

The public office holders were accused of misusing their authorities in active connivance with each other to give wrongful gains of Rs14.146 billion to EETL/ETPL/ECL in connection with LNG Terminal-1 of EETL and also caused a wrongful loss of Rs7.438 billion, approximately, for non-utilisation of unused capacity of second LNG Terminal of PGPL from March 2015 to September 2019.

Hence, the total liability amounts to Rs21.584 billion, approximately, till September 2019. 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.

During the period, unexplained deposits of Rs1.426 billion were received in the accounts of Abdullah Abbasi and Rs1.294 billion were deposited in the bank accounts of the PML-N leader between 2013 and 2017, during which the above-said LNG terminal deal was struck.

According to the reference, by concealing the origin of the aforementioned deposits and layering, the accused also committed the offence of money laundering.