Dr Asim at a NAB court in Karachi on May 27. Photo: Geo News

KARACHI: The Sindh High Court (SHC) on Monday ruled to continue inclusion of Dr Asim Hussain?s name in the Exit Control List (ECL).

An SHC bench, headed by Justice Junaid Ghaffar, had on May 26 reserved its verdict in the Pakistan Peoples Party?s leader?s plea to remove his name from the ECL. On Monday, the bench rejected Dr Asim?s plea.

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Dr Asim ? out on bail in cases of corruption and terrorism ? had requested the court to allow him to travel out of the country for surgery. 

At the hearing before the SHC reserved the verdict, the federal government had opposed the removal of Dr Asim?s name from the no-fly list, informing the two-judge bench that the accused has been put on the ECL on the order of the court as well as on recommendations of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB).

Dr Asim ? a former federal minister and close aide of former president Asif Ali Zardari ? faces trial in two cases of alleged corruption of over Rs450 billion and another of allegedly facilitating and treating terrorists at his medical facility ? Dr Ziauddin Hospital.

The NAB prosecutor had informed the bench at the last hearing that Dr Asim had been granted bail in the corruption cases on medical grounds, following which the court had directed him to deposit his passports and also directed the Interior Ministry to place his name on the ECL.

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Dr Asim was released from the sub-jail at the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre in Karachi on March 31 this year after obtaining bail in all the cases lodged against him. He was initially arrested by the Rangers in August 2015 and then transferred into police custody.