Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: More than 2,400 Pakistani prisoners, languishing in jails of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), have been released during the last one year due to efforts of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government.

“Pakistan achieves release of 1,245 prisoners from Saudi Arabia and 1,200 from the Emirates during the first year of the PTI government which is unprecedented,” an official source in the ministry of Overseas Pakistanis and Human Resource Development (OPHED) told APP.

When the PTI government came to power, he said there were some 3,300 Pakistanis imprisoned in Saudi jails while 2,521 were facing jail terms in UAE.

However, the government had made sure the release of some 38 per cent and 48 per cent of total Pakistani prisoners languishing in Saudi Arabia and the UAE’s jails, respectively, he added.

He said the government had extended financial and legal assistance to 2,559 Pakistani prisoners, languishing in the Middle East countries’ prisons on minor crimes, to ensure their early release.

Apart from Saudi Arabia and the UAE, the official stated that some 55 Pakistani prisoners released from Oman, 18 from Kuwait, 17 from Bahrain, 14 from Qatar and 10 from Iraq.

The ministry had also arranged the repatriation of 320 passengers from Malaysia stranded in camps, 1,600 passengers from Thailand who were stuck there due to airspace closure in the recent past, 28 drivers from Iraq and more than five trafficked children to the Middle East for immoral purposes, he maintained.