Sharifs to challenge Hudaibiya bench today

ISLAMABAD: The Sharif family will challenge in the Supreme Court today (Monday) the apex court bench formed for hearing the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) appeal seeking the reopening of the Hudaibiya Paper Mills reference against the members of the family.

According to sources, an application would be filed in the SC on Monday (today) and the Sharif family has directed its legal team in this regard. Sources said Pakistan Muslim League-N President Nawaz Sharif decided to challenge the bench after consultations with his brother Shahbaz Sharif, the Chief Minister of Punjab.

Sources said the application would take the plea that the petitioners did not have confidence in the bench hearing NAB's plea for reopening of reference, as the same bench had already given a verdict against the Sharif family in the Panama Papers case.

On the other hand, an SC bench is all set to hear a NAB appeal seeking the reopening of the Hudaibiya Paper Mills reference against them. A three-judge bench, headed by Justice Asif Saeed Khosa and comprising Justice Dost Muhammad Khan and Justice Mazhar Alam Khan, will hear the appeal, filed by NAB, seeking re-investigation of the Rs1.2 billion Hudaibiya Mills case.

The Sharif family seemed to be unhappy with the NAB move. NAB, through its Prosecutor General Waqas Qadeer Dar, had filed the appeal pleading with the top court to grant leave to appeal to examine the legality, propriety and vires of the 2014 LHC verdict, quashing the Hudaibiya Paper Mills case and set aside the impugned judgement.

Former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif, Shamim Akhtar, mother of Nawaz and Shahbaz, the late Abbas Sharif, Maryam Safdar, Hussain Nawaz, Hamza Shahbaz, Hudaibiya Paper Mills Ltd, the federal government and others have been named as respondents in the appeal.

Hudaibiya Paper Mills had7 directors: Mian Sharif, Shahbaz Sharif, Abbas Sharif, Hamza Shahbaz, Hussain Nawaz, Sabiha Abbas and Shamim Akhtar. Earlier, the reference was shelved for the accused being abroad.

According to the Hudaibiya reference, the Sharif family had set up the mill to launder money. A joint investigation team, set up to investigate the Sharif family’s offshore properties, had recommended in its report that the Hudaibiya Paper Mills should be investigated afresh.

Subsequently, a Supreme Court bench hearing the Panama Papers case, had asked the bureau to reopen the case. Finance Minister Ishaq Dar, who is a close aide and relative of the Sharifs, had given a confessional statement before a magistrate alleging that Sharif brothers used Hudaibiya Paper Mills as cover for money laundering during the late 1990s. Dar later retracted his statement and claimed that the statement was gleaned under duress.