ISLAMABAD: Ousted premier Nawaz Sharif arrived at the accountability court on Wednesday along with daughter Maryam Nawaz and son-in-law Capt Safdar for the hearing of the Avenfield flats corruption reference, along with two others, filed against them by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB).
The court officially began hearing of the NAB references today to record statements from witnesses including Securities and Exchange Commission Pakistan (SECP) officer Sidra Mansur and Federal Bureau Revenue’s Jahangir Ahmad. The trial will be presided upon by Justice Muhammad Bashir.
As trial proceedings began, Sidra Mansur, Deputy Registrar of Companies, SECP, recorded her statement in the Avenfield flats reference.
Mansur stated that the audit report of Hudaibiya Mills from 2000-2005 has been submitted to the accountability court which has forwarded it to NAB. “The documents have my signature and thumb print on them,” she added.
The documents submitted today shall be put under scrutiny to assess their authenticity. A NAB prosecutor was quick to point out, “These are photocopies and not the original document” to which the SECP officer claimed that all had been submitted.
During the hearing, Nawaz Sharif also submitted two pleas to the court. The ousted premier and his daughter requested that they be exempted from appearing in court the week after November 20 which will be spent in the company of his ailing wife, Begum Kulsoom Nawaz, who he has “been with for 40 years now”. The duo nominated Jahangir Jadoon as Maryam’s representative in her absence.
The case was adjourned till November 22.
Speaking to the reporters after the hearing, the former premier underscored that the PML-N will continue working to end the courts’ dual standards.
“Accountability is being controlled by someone else and we are only being punished. This is not accountability but revenge,” he said without elaborating.
Nawaz further said that he was framed in the hijack case in the 1999 case and was being framed again.
“The Supreme Court remarks in the Panamagate case were similar to our political opponents,” he said adding that those remarks were not a judgement but a clear message to NAB to punish him [Nawaz].
