US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (R) and Makhdoom Shah Mehmood Qureshi.

WASHINGTON: The former president of one of Pakistan’s major banks has given up his fight against extradition, clearing the way for his return home to face accusations that he stole $10.8 million from his bank.

Hamesh Khan’s extradition is now in US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s hands after a federal judge in Alexandria concluded there was enough probable cause for the dual US-Pakistani citizen to be handed over to Pakistani authorities.

But his lawyer Stuart Sears has urged the State Department to grant him a personal hearing before deciding his case.

The lawyer claims that Mr Khan “has been threatened by Pakistani officials and is a victim of political persecution”.

Under US laws, the State Department must consider both factors before agreeing to return him.

In an interview last week to The Washington Times, Mr Khan said he was accused of fraud because he had denied loans to Shahbaz Sharif and Nawaz Sharif and also because he was appointed by former military ruler Pervez Musharraf.

He said that Shahbaz Sharif sought a loan of $8 million for his sons, which he refused.

The two PML-N leaders were “checking off which enemies they would get and they finally got to him”, Mr Khan’s second lawyer John Zwerling told journalists in Washington.

Mr Zwerling claimed that in Pakistan Mr Khan would face judges who were already irritated with his fleeing the country in May 2008, a month after authorities began an investigation into the mortgages he allegedly gave out to fake people and companies.

Mr Khan was taken into custody at his Washington US Department of Agriculture office late last year. The arrest occurred just hours after news broke in the United States that five Washington-area men had been detained by Pakistani authorities for allegedly trying to join terrorist groups.

Mr Khan’s accomplices in the alleged mortgage fraud scheme turned the details over to the Pakistani government more than two years ago.

On Monday, Mr Khan chose to forgo the extradition battle because “most, if not all, of the evidence he would present in support of his innocence would be ruled inadmissible,” lawyer Zwerling wrote in a recently filed court document.

Mr Khan used his US passport to flee Pakistan and moved to Northern Virginia. A US Department of Agriculture spokesman said he passed an FBI fingerprint test and was hired as a financial analyst in February 2009. Pakistani media reports indicate a warrant for Mr Khan’s arrest was issued in the summer of 2009.