"We haven't actually booked it [the flight] yet, but Dr Karabus is negotiating with Emirates because he has a flight owed to him," said Michael Bagraim on Tuesday.
When Karabus entered the country last year, he had booked and paid for a return flight to South Africa before he was arrested.
"He is trying to get that flight back. They said they are willing to give him a flight, maybe on Thursday morning. He is going there tomorrow morning to do the booking."
A client of Bagraim's firm had also offered to pay for an immediate flight for Karabus to return to South Africa, but he declined it, saying he did not want to waste his or another person's money.
"He is prepared to wait for his flight," said Bagraim.
Earlier, United Arab Emirates officials handed back the doctor's passport.
International relations department spokesperson Clayson Monyela said the passport was handed to the South African embassy around noon on Tuesday.
ANC welcomes the news
The United Arab Emirates interior department had also issued a letter allowing Karabus to leave the region.
"The South African government is glad that the ordeal that Professor Karabus has suffered during the last few months is nearing its end, and looks forward to welcoming him back to South Africa," said Monyela.
The ANC welcomed the news of his imminent return home.
"The ANC has received the news with relief and is happy that the professor will soon be reunited with his friends and family following his harrowing eight-month ordeal," said spokesperson Jackson Mthembu in a statement.
"As traumatic as we believe professor Karabus's ordeal was, the ANC celebrates that finally after such a prolonged case, justice and fairness prevailed on this matter."
The 78-year-old paediatric oncologist had been detained in the United Arab Emirates since August 18, after being sentenced in absentia for the death of a Yemeni girl he treated for leukaemia in 2002.
Karabus was acquitted on March 21, and won a subsequent appeal, but his return to South Africa was delayed because he was on the United Arab Emirates's database as a fugitive from justice.
His bail money of R250 000 was recently returned to him. – Sapa