Abbasi, Shahid Khaqan, 1958–, Pakistani politician. Trained as an electrical engineer, he worked in the United States and Saudi Arabia before returning to Pakistan in 1988. A member of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) party and an ally of Nawaz Sharif, he served two years in prison (1999–2001) following Sharif's overthrow by Gen. Musharraf but was later acquitted. Abbasi has served in the National Assembly (1988–99, 2002–13, 2018–), and was minister of commerce (2008) and of petroleum and natural resources (2013–17) before becoming interim prime minister (2017–18) following the disqualification of Sharif. A wealthy businessman, he was chairman of Pakistan International Airlines (1997–99) and founded Airblue in 2003. In 2019, Abbasi was arrested in a corruption investigation into his role in the awarding of a contract in 2013 to a liquefied natural gas company in which he was a shareholder.
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