Government of Pakistan refused to accept a special extradition charter flight from the UK on October 20 this year. According to Newspaper, The Sun British government paid £300,000 to charter a special plane to take around 40 deportees from London to Islamabad from Malaysia. But Pakistani government withdrew clearance for the flight to land. The newspaper claims that the incident happened after the international row over the repatriation of ex-PM Nawaz Sharif, who was released from jail in Pakistan but failed to return to serve a seven-year term for corruption.
The withdrawal of permission for the flight meant that all illegal immigrants were returned to detention centres around the UK. The Sun claims that “publicly Pakistan has confirmed that the extradition flight from the UK was not given clearance to land but denied it was linked to the row over Nawaz Sharif’s repatriation. But privately officials accepted to The Sun that the two issues are related”.In the next few days, it is expected that the deportation flight will eventually take off.
- Virgin Atlantic suspends flight operations to Pakistan
- PIA to finally start flights to Istanbul from Lahore and Islamabad
- Air Sial’s 4th Airbus A320 lands at Karachi Airport
- British Airways resuming its Islamabad-London flights from 2nd August
- Allama Iqbal International Airport Lahore’s main runway is opened for flight operations after 2 years