Huge relief for Nawaz Sharif in Al-Azizia case
Pakistan
Nawaz Sharif gets one relief after another
LAHORE (Muhammad Ashfaq) – The caretaker Punjab government has dismissed PML-N leader Nawaz Sharif’s sentence in Al-Azizia case.
An accountability court had sentenced the three-time prime minister to 10-year jail term in the case.
In the light of the Islamabad High Court’s recent decision, he submitted an application to the provincial government, requesting that he should be exonerated in the case as it was launched on political grounds and that he had done nothing wrong.
Soon after his return from four-year exile in the UK, Nawaz Sharif appeared in the IHC.
In his plea to the government, he demanded that the case be closed.
The caretaker government fixed the case for hearing and heard it through video-link. Nawaz Sharif’s counsel Azam Nazir Tarar and Amjad Pervez advanced arguments on the basis of which the provincial cabinet and the chief secretary accepted the plea and dismissed Sharif’s sentence.
Background
On July 28, 2017, the Supreme Court of Pakistan disqualified Nawaz Sharif in the Panama Papers case and directed the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) to investigate the Sharif family.
The court also directed the accountability court to deal with the NAB references within six months. The court appointed SC judge Ijazul Ahsan to supervise the cases.
The accountability court sentenced Nawaz Sharif to 10 years in jail, Maryam Nawaz to seven years and retired Capt Safdar to one year jail term in Avenfield reference on July 6, 2018.
Sharif, accompanied by daughter Maryam Nawaz, returned to the country on July 13, 2018 – a time when his wife Begum Kulsoom Nawaz was fighting for her life due to terminal disease. Police arrested Sharif and others at the airport on July 13 and was put them behind the bars.
A two-member bench of the IHC dismissed their sentences on Sept 14, 2018 in Avenfield reference and ordered they be released.
Later, on Jan 14, 2019, an SC bench headed by Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar dismissed NAB’s appeals.
As for Al-Azizia case, Sharif was again sentenced to seven-year jail term on Dec 24, 2018 after which he was jailed. He was, however, set free in the Flagship case.
On Oct 31, 2019, a two-member bench of the IHC dismissed sentences of Sharif in both cases on medical grounds and allowed him to travel abroad. The court said he could seek extension to his stay abroad through the Punjab government if his health issues persisted.
Sharif moved the Lahore High Court to have his name removed from the ECL and a two-member bench, headed by Justice Baqar Najafi, accepted his plea and paved the way for his departure on Nov 16, 2019. Shehbaz Sharif became guarantor in the case.
During Sharif’s stay in London, the PTI government claimed that he was an absconder for not returning to the country as promised but did not move court. The IHC, on the other hand, declared Sharif a court absconder when he failed to return after four weeks in the Avenfield and Al-Azizia references.
Now, the Sharif family head averted his arrest as the caretaker Punjab government provided him relief under section 401 of CrPC in the form of dismissal of sentence in Al-Azizia reference.
He will continue to face the spectre of disqualification until the IHC gives him a clean chit in the two cases.
