Court orders NAB to provide case documents to Sharjeel Memon’s lawyers

The accountability court hearing a corruption reference against former information minister Sharjeel Inam Memon has ordered the investigation officer (IO) to provide all relevant case documents to Memon and other co-accused.

The court took up the hearing on Thursday with the intention to indict the accused, however, their attorneys submitted that the National Accountability Bureau’s authorities have not yet provided all due case documents to them.

Following this the court ordered the authorities to make the documents available to the accused persons’ lawyers and then set the next hearing for December 23. In an informal chat with journalists outside the courtroom following the hearing on Thursday, Memon, a Pakistan Peoples Party leader, said that NAB had issued the directives to place deposed prime minister Nawaz Sharif and his family’s name on the Exit Control List (ECL) but no step had been taken so far in this regard.

The former minister said that while Nawaz and his family members, who are also facing corruption references, were free to go to London without any hurdles, he was forced to stay in prison despite being ill. “NAB has double standards in dealing with political leaders. In fact NAB has become a big question mark due to its legal policies,” Memon said.

Memon and 11 others are in custody, accused of being involved in corruption of more than Rs5.76 billion in government advertisements. They were arrested in October after the Sindh High Court rejected their bail pleas.

On Wednesday, the accountability court hearing the case, had issued directives that a medical board be set up within three days to examine Memon. The court also wrote to the provincial health secretary to submit the report of the medical exam within 15 days so that it can be determined whether he should be treated at the prison’s medical facility or at some hospital.