LAHORE, Nov 15: A local accountability court on Tuesday allowed People’s Party secretary-general Jahangir Badr to proceed abroad to work in a campaign aimed at raising funds for the earthquake victims. The court gave the PPP leader a one-time visit to a few countries, including the UK and USA, for 15 days on Mr Badr’s plea that he was directed by his party to go out of the country for the fund-raising campaign.

His request was opposed by advocate Asad Manzoor Butt, the prosecutor of the National Accountability Bureau, on the ground that a person facing corruption charges could not be allowed to leave the country on a work which was purely political in nature.

Mr Badr is facing the charges of amassing assets found to be disproportionate to his known sources of income as the minister incharge of oil and gas in the first tenure of Benazir Bhutto as prime minister between 1988 and 1990.