Al-Azizia case: NA address based on info fed by son, says Nawaz

ISLAMABAD: Former prime minister Muhammad Nawaz Sharif on Wednesday told the Accountability Court-II judge that he had never admitted owning the Al-Azizia Mills and Dubai factories during a corruption hearing against him.

Judge Muhammad Arshad Malik resumed the hearing in the Al-Azizia corruption reference and recorded Nawaz Sharif’s statement under Section 342 of the Criminal Procedure Code. As the hearing started, Nawaz approached the rostrum to verbally record his testimony. The judge asked him to go back to his seat and said he himself would read out the statement for it to be recorded.

Nawaz told the judge that the Al-Azizia Steel Mills was constructed by his father and he was not involved in any way with the family businesses. The former prime minister also reiterated that he had nothing to do with any agreements done by the Gulf Steel Mills. He requested the judge to exempt his speech made in the National Assembly in 2016 from being used as evidence under Article 66 of the Constitution, as the address was made on the information fed to him by his son.

The judge asked him if it was correct that he had held public offices. To this, Nawaz affirmed that he had served as prime minister three times, chief minister, finance minister and opposition leader.

Nawaz stated before the court that he didn’t hold any public office from October 12, 1999 to May 2013 and that he had submitted the wealth tax returns by himself and from 2000 to 2007 he was in exile.

His defence counsel, Khawaja Haris, cross-examined the investigation officer (IO) Muhammad Kamran, who said call-up notices had not been served on Hassan Nawaz and Hussain Nawaz on their foreign addresses. The IO told the judge that he came to know through the JIT report that Hassan and Hussain Nawaz were non-residential citizens of Pakistan.

During the hearing, the former prime minister pointed out that some of the questions were based on rumours, while a few others were ambiguous in nature to which Khawaja Haris raised objections.

After submitting his answers to 45 out of 50 questions listed on the questionnaire, Nawaz requested the court to allow him to answer five other questions after consulting with his lawyers. The court also put more questions to him. The court adjourned the hearing until Thursday (today).