PM Shehbaz to leave for Pakistan today

• PM Shehbaz will leave London for Pakistan at 6pm today. 
• He delayed his journey to Pakistan after his family asked him to. 
• He held several meetings with Nawaz Sharif on national issues. 

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif will leave for Pakistan this evening, Geo News reported Sunday. His flight is scheduled to take off at 6pm for Pakistan.

Shehbaz flew to London after completing his two-day visit to Egypt where he attended the COP27 meeting. He previously planned to leave for Pakistan on Friday. However, he delayed the trip back home, and his family sources cited physical exhaustion as the reason for his decision.

His family advised him not to travel as he developed a fever before leaving for the airport on Saturday, sources said. Accordingly, he extended his stay for a second time, family sources said.

PM Shehbaz held several meetings with the PMLN supremo and his elder brother, Nawaz Sharif during his stay in London. The meetings were mostly focused on the country’s politics and the appointment of a new army chief.

On Friday, in a setback to PM Shehbaz, his request for an indefinite adjournment in the Daily Mail defamation case was denied by a court in the United Kingdom.

Justice Matthew Nicklin heard the case, according to British media. The court denied him more time. The PM’s counsels requested the court to grant him time to submit his response as the prime minister was currently engaged in professional responsibilities.

However, Justice Nicklin asserted, “In his court, the prime minister and the common man are equal,” as per media reports.

If PM Shehbaz and his son-in-law Ali Imran fail to respond to Daily Mail’s lawyers in court, they would have to pay the defendant all the cost of the legal proceedings.

In 2019, the prime minister served a legal notice on the British daily and its journalist David Rose for blaming him for misappropriating public funds.

“The article is gravely defamatory of PM Shehbaz, including false allegations that he misappropriated UK taxpayers’ money in the form of Department for International Development (DFID) aid intended for the victims of the devastating 2005 earthquake in Pakistan. PM Shehbaz denies these allegations,” the legal notice said.

At a hearing in a London court, Justice Nicklin ruled that PM Shehbaz’s lawyer will have to deposit £30,000 by November 23 after his lawyers applied unilaterally to the court to withdraw the stay application in favour of the trial proceedings to go ahead.

PM Shehbaz’s lawyers at Carter Ruck made this move after he was cleared in the money-laundering case by a court in Pakistan but the application for stay at the London High Court was made much earlier than that.