ISLAMABAD -UNS: The Islamabad High Court on Thursday accepted PML-N supremo Nawaz Sharif’s pleas, granting him protective bail in the Avenfield and Al-Azizia cases until October 24 (Tuesday).
It comes before the former premier’s impending arrival on Oct 21. His planned return to Pakistan would be after almost four years of self-imposed exile.
In July 2018, ousted Nawaz was handed 10 years in jail in the Avenfield properties corruption reference for owning assets beyond known income and one year for not cooperating with the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), which was to be served concurrently.
His daughter, PML-N Chief Organiser Maryam Nawaz, had also been sentenced to seven years in jail in the case but was acquitted in September 2022 along with her husband retired Captain Safdar.
The Al-Azizia Steel Mills corruption reference pertains to the case in which he was sentenced to seven years in jail on Dec 24, 2018 and then taken to Rawalpindi’s Adiala Jail, from where he was shifted to Lahore’s Kot Lakhpat jail next day. He was also fined Rs1.5 billion and US$25 million in the case.
Nawaz was released from jail in March 2019, following which he left for London in November 2019 after the LHC allowed him to do so. The IHC declared him a proclaimed offender in both cases in December 2020.
A day ago, PML-N lawyers had moved the IHC seeking protective bail for Nawaz in these two cases, with NAB Special Prosecutor Afzal Qureshi saying that the accountability watchdog did not object to pleas moved by the elder Sharif.
Today, IHC Chief Justice Aamer Farooq and Justice Miangul Hasan Aurangzeb took up the pleas.
Nawaz’s counsels, including former law minister Azam Nazir Tarar and Amjad Pervaiz, appeared before the court while NAB prosecutors Rana Maqsood, Qureshi and Naeem Sanghera were also present.
At the outset of the hearing, Sanghera presented his arguments in favour of the PML-N supremo, at which the chief justice asked, “Has the NAB’s stance changed?”
The prosecutor replied, “NAB’s stance is the same.” He went on to recall that the IHC had written in its order that when the petitioner returns, he could “restore his appeal”.
Justice Farooq once again asked, “We had asked the same — what was NAB’s stance? There hasn’t been any change in it?”
The prosecutor responded, “This is the stance for now that if he comes back, we have no objection to it.”
