File photo. Aamir Qureshi—AFP
An accountability court in Islamabad on Tuesday acquitted former prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, as well as his co-accused, in the LNG terminal case after the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) withdrew its reference.
Accountability Court Judge Nasir Javed Rana announced the verdict on a petition filed by NAB seeking the withdrawal of its reference against the former prime minister. Abbasi and his legal counsel were present in court when his acquittal was announced.
NAB had arrested Abbasi for alleged corruption in 2019 over the awarding of a multi-billion rupee import contract for LNG in 2013 when he was the minister for petroleum and natural resources. In July 2020, NAB had approved a supplementary reference against Abbasi; his son Abdullah Khaqan Abbasi; former finance minister Miftah Ismail; former chairman of Port Qasim Authority Agha Jan Akhtar; former chairman of OGRA Saeed Ahmed Khan; ex-member of OGRA Aamir Naseem Uzma; former MD of Pakistan State Oil (PSO) Shahid M Islam, and others.
The public office-holders were accused of misusing their authorities in active connivance with each other to give wrongful gains of Rs. 14.146 billion to Engro in connection with LNG Terminal-1, and also causing a wrongful loss of Rs. 7.438 billion for non-utilization of unused capacity of second LNG Terminal of PGPL from March 2015 to September 2019. The total liability amounts, per the reference, amounted to Rs. 21.584 billion till September 2019.
The reference had alleged that “unexplained” deposits of Rs. 1.426 billion were received in the accounts of Abdullah Abbasi and Rs. 1.294 billion in the former prime minister’s accounts between 2013 and 2017, when the LNG terminal deal was finalized.