Nawaz requests SC to let him get treatment abroad

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz supremo and deposed prime minister Nawaz Sharif has filed a review petition in the Supreme Court (SC), seeking permanent bail and permission to travel abroad for medical treatment.

Advocate Khawaja Haris, Sharif’s counsel, filed the civil review petition on Thursday against the apex court’s March 26 judgment which saw his sentence in the Al-Azizia reference suspended for six weeks on medical grounds.

The Supreme Court’s verdict, however, stipulated Sharif to get medical treatment from within the country. The court had also directed the former premier to submit two bail bonds amounting to Rs10 million. Sharif’s medical history had also been affixed with the application. It said the former prime minister was going through “extreme stressful circumstances” for the past two years which multiplied manifold with his wife’s terminal illness and her subsequent demise.

The petition added that Sharif was suffering from “anxiety and depression”. He pleaded the apex court to modify the March 26 verdict and allow him to travel abroad for medical treatment.

Sharif had been in jail since December 2018 following his conviction in the Al-Azizia corruption reference. An accountability court had found the PML-N supremo guilty and sentenced him to seven years in prison.

The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government criticised Sharif’s petition as a “drama”. Prime Minister’s aide for Information and Broadcasting Dr Firdous Ashiq Awan said: “Nawaz Sharif’s drama of disease has reached its climax with his application for treatment abroad. It has proved beyond any doubt that he wanted to go to London in order to escape prison.”

In a statement, Awan said: “[PML-N spokeswoman] Marriyum Aurangzeb is a spokesperson of the corrupt whose interpretation and explanation could not hide billions of rupees recovered from the account of a Paaperwala [papad seller].”

She also attacked Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, who has been firing broadsides at the ruling party’s policies, criticising their competence.

“It is surprising that Bilawal Bhutto Zardari is feeling the pain of the general public. People are still poor as both former ruling parties looted national resources,” she added. She said the “lavish lifestyle of opposition leaders belied their claims of affection with the poor and they even did not even know prices of daily use items”. Awan said it would be “miraculous” if Bilawal could tell people about the prices of daily use items.

“The flawed policies of PPP and PML-N led to the current poor economic conditions of the country,” she added. Bilawal is not worried for the poor, but trying to befool the masses and come to power but people have already rejected dynastic politics.”

She said if Bilawal was truly worried about poverty and inflation, “he should ask his father and aunt to return the nation’s looted wealth”.