NAB notice not received by Sharifs so far: PML-N

LAHORE: Appearance of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif and his sons before the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) Lahore is uncertain.

Sources in NAB told The News, that the summoning orders by the NAB were dispatched on Wednesday (August 16), requiring the former PM and his two sons Hassan and Hussain Nawaz to appear on Friday (today) while Federal Finance Minister Ishaq Dar was directed to appear on August 23.

The PML-N leadership was in a quandary regarding the question whether Nawaz and his sons would appear before the NAB investigators. There were several versions of stances shared by different PML-N sources in this regard by different PML-N spokespersons.

Initially, it PML-N’s Senator Syed Asif Kirmani was reported as having said that Nawaz Sharif has never shied away from facing courts and he will bravely fight his case. Later, Kirmani released a statement saying that all such reports being run in his name are false and that he had not said that Nawaz Sharif would appear before the bureau. He said no notice had been received by the Sharifs so far. 

When former federal minister Pervez Rasheed was contacted, he told The News that no notice whatsoever had been received by the Sharif family by 9:30pm Thursday. Meanwhile sources in the Sharif family too denied that that they had received the notices issued by the NAB. "We have learnt about the NAB notice only in the news, no communication [has] been made till now,” it was said.

 Some sources in the PML-N told The News that they were not sure if Nawaz Sharif will appear before the bureau. They, however, said the Sharif family has got their paperwork and strategy sorted out in this regard. Senior lawyer Khawaja Harris and advocate Amjad Pervaiz are dealing with the legal matters with the NAB references, they added.