Summary Adviser to PM Sartaj Aziz said Ali Haider Gilani has been handed over to Pakistani embassy.
ISLAMABAD (Web Desk) – Former Prime Minister (PM) Yousaf Raza Gilani‘s son Ali Haider Gilani, who was earlier recovered from Afghanistan by Afghan-US forces in a joint operation, will be brought back to Pakistan today (Wednesday).
Talking in Dunya Kamran Khan Kay Sath, Adviser on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz said Ali Haider Gilani has been handed over to Pakistani embassy from where he will be fetched in Prime Minister‘s special plane that has already left for Afghanistan.
Aziz further added that Gilani was at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan and is safe.
I really appreciate Afghan forces who fought for my recovery," Gilani, who was bearded, clad in a white T-shirt and sporting a camouflage baseball cap, told officials at the ceremony in Kabul.
Gilani was rescued in the Giyan district of Paktika province "by US Special Operations Forces and Afghan commandos in a partnered raid," NATO said in the statement from Kabul.
Four "enemy combatants" were killed during the raid, it said.
The Afghan presidency said the raid targeted an Al-Qaeda cell.
Hundreds of people converged on the family’s home in Multan in central Punjab province as the news broke, dancing to drumbeats and passing around sweets in celebration whereas Ali Gilani‘s son also expressed ecstasy on the return of his father.
Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Raheel Sharif, Prime Minister (PM) Nawaz Sharif, Asif Ali Zardari, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari and others felicitated Gilani family.
Ex-PM’s son was kidnapped by militants in the outskirts of Multan on May 9, 2013, just two days before a bitterly contested national election in which he was campaigning.
Gunmen on a motorbike opened fire before abducting him in a black Honda car. His secretary and a bodyguard were killed, and four people wounded.
Ali Gilani’s recovery comes two months after the kidnapped son of slain Salman Taseer, Shahbaz Taseer was freed.
