LAHORE – Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz leader Hanif Abbasi was released from Lahore’s Camp Jail on Saturday, two days after his bail was approved by the Lahore High Court.
Two surety bonds of Rs5 million each were submitted to the Lahore High Court (LHC) following which Camp Jail’s superintendent was instructed to release Abbasi on bail “provided he is not undergoing imprisonment for any other offence”.
‘I am grateful to Allah Almighty,’ Abbasi said in his brief comments upon release.
Dozens of party loyalists greeted him as he emerged from the jail exit before proceeding to Rawalpindi.
The PML-N leader had been sentenced to life imprisonment in a case related to the quota of Ephedrine in July last year, however, the sentence was suspended by the Lahore High Court on Thursday.
A two-member bench, headed by Justice Alia Neelum accepted Abbasi’s plea to suspend the sentence and ordered his release on bail, however, the court declared that it would continue to hear the case.
Abbasi, who was contesting the upcoming election from NA-60 Rawalpindi against Sheikh Rasheed, faced charges of misusing 500kg of the controlled chemical ephedrine which he obtained for his company, Gray Pharmaceutical, in 2010.
The Anti-Narcotics Force (ANF) had registered a case against Abbasi and his accomplices in June 2012 under various sections of the Control of Narcotics Substances (CNS) Act.
