Drug lord will be forced to return next month: Home Minister

Minister of Home Affairs Umar Naseer has said that leave for medical treatment abroad granted to drug lord Ibrahim Shafaz Abdul Razzaq (Safa), will expire on 20 May.

Ibrahim Shafaz, serving a 18-year prison sentence since November 2013 for heading a mass drug smuggling operation between 2006 and 2011, was allowed to leave to Sri Lanka for medical purposes in February this year.

Speaking on VTV’s Fasmanzaru program, Umar Naseer said that recommendations from two specialist doctors are required for a prisoner to travel abroad for medical treatment. The prisoners must travel under a temporary travel document that requires them to return within a specific period.

“The person will be stuck, if he does not come back,” Umar Naseer said.

He said that the government will seek an Interpol red notice, if the prisoner is known to have fled.

Speaking of the recently enacted death penalty regulation, Home Minister said that he is prepared to implement the death penalty, if the Supreme Court upholds a death sentence.

He said that the Clemency Act does not allow the President to commute or grant pardon to a person convicted of murder. However, the law does allow the President to commute a death sentence levied for an act of terrorism, that could have resulted in the execution of the President himself, Minister of Home Affairs Umar Naseer said.