Over 2,400 Pak prisoners freed from Saudi Arabia, UAE

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, a media report said.

"Pakistan achieves release of 1,245 prisoners from Saudi Arabia and 1,200 from the Emirates during the first year of the PTI (Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf) government which is unprecedented," a ministry of Overseas Pakistanis and Human Resource Development (OPHED) source told the state-run Associated Press of Pakistan news agency on Sunday.

When the PTI government came to power, the source said that 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 release of some 38 per cent and 48 per cent of total Pakistani prisoners 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, jailed in the Middle East countries' due to minor crimes, to ensure their early release.

Apart from Saudi Arabia and the UAE, the source 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 recent past, 28 drivers from Iraq and more than five trafficked children to Middle East for immoral purposes.