Ex-PM Abbasi’s judicial remand extended in Qatar LNG case

ISLAMABAD: An accountability court on Tuesday extended the judicial remand of Pakistan’s former prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi till February 21 in a case involving a multibillion-rupee liquefied natural gas (LNG) import contract to Qatar.
Abbasi, who is also the vice president of the opposition Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) party, was arrested in July last year for alleged misappropriation of funds in the LNG import deal. However, he denies the charge.
The former prime minister on Saturday filed a post-arrest bail petition in the Islamabad High Court, but it is yet to be taken up.
“The petitioner has been in the National Accountability Bureau’s detention for 191 days, and the bureau’s real motive is only to harass the petitioner now,” the plea argued. Abbasi’s party, the PML-N, has also maintained that the former prime minister is politically victimized.
Pakistan is currently receiving a supply of 500 million cubic feet per day of LNG from Qatar under a 15-year agreement at 13.37 percent of Brent crude price. It is a government-to-government agreement and the price can only be reviewed after 10 years of the contract.
NAB officials believe Abbasi’s alleged misappropriation of funds in the LNG case has caused a loss of about $2 billion to the national exchequer.
Abbasi is also investigated for allegedly granting a 15-year contract for an LNG terminal to a “favored” company. However, he rejects the allegations.