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ISLAMABAD - A special US plane that arrived at Nur Khan Airbase Rawalpindi on Saturday to fly out Military Attaché at US Embassy Colonel Joseph Emanuel Hall returned after the Interior Ministry refused to issue no objection certificate to the American diplomat.

Sources aware of the developments told The Nation that the US special plane (C-130) had landed at the airport on Saturday morning but the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) prevented Col Hall to leave the country as he was not having clearance from the relevant quarters.

Col Hall, the defence and air attaché at the US embassy, had hit and killed a motorcyclist at a traffic signal in Islamabad on April 7 and injured another. The deceased was identified as Ateeq Baig.

Later, the Interior Ministry had placed the US diplomat’s name on a blacklist, prohibiting him to leave the country without prior permission.

Sources said that as the diplomat was on the blacklist, he could not fly out of the country without taking prior permission from relevant quarters.

The father of Baig had moved the Islamabad High Court seeking placement of the US diplomat’s name on the exit control list and sought legal action against him.

The IHC on Friday last gave two weeks time to the Ministry of Interior to decide on the matter of placing the US diplomat on the ECL as the officials of the ministry had sought time for consultation with Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the issue.

The court during the hearing also remarked that the US diplomat did not have absolute immunity in the country.

In another development, a security official of Col Hall was also arrested on the orders of AIG Islamabad for allegedly obstructing a police officer from performing his duty. Arrest orders of all other officials involved in helping Col Hall to flee the police station after the accident had been issued, a government functionary said.

Agencies add: A C-130 plane landed at Nur Khan airbase in Rawalpindi on Saturday morning to carry Col Joseph Emanuel Hall, the U.S. Defense attache stationed in Islamabad, a senior Interior Ministry official told Turkish news agency Anadolu Agency on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue.

The plane took off after the Interior Ministry informed the US Embassy about a high court’s order that bars the diplomat from leaving the country till the disposal of the case against him, the source added.

Hall was stopped at the immigration counter and informed that he could not leave the country, the official said.

The US Embassy officials accompanying the defence attaché contacted the Interior Ministry but they were outrightly told that the diplomat could not fly out of the country unless the court orders otherwise, the official added.

“We have also informed the US Embassy that he cannot fly out of the country following the court orders,” he further said.

Richard Snelsire, a spokesman for the US Embassy in Islamabad, refused to deny or confirm the event. “We do not want to comment on that,” the spokesman told Anadolu Agency.

A US State Department spokesperson in Washington would neither confirm nor deny them. “For the privacy and security of those involved, we cannot disclose the diplomat’s current location,” the State Department spokesperson said.

The move came a day after Pakistan said it would restrict the movements of all American diplomats in the country in response to Washington’s similar restrictions on Pakistani embassy diplomats.

The US State Department on Saturday confirmed the new restrictions on its employees in Pakistan but declined further comment. “We are in regular communication with our Pakistani counterparts. We do not discuss details of diplomatic conversations,” the spokesperson said.