Bungling quake victims fund like ‘feeding on corpses’: Shahbaz

LAHORE: An accountability court on Saturday directed the NAB to produce Opposition Leader in Punjab Assembly Hamza Shahbaz on the next hearing on August 1 in the Ramzan Sugar Mills case.

As the hearing commenced on Saturday, duty judge Waseem Akhtar inquired from NAB prosecutor about Hamza Shahbaz. At that, he informed the court that Hamza is on a physical remand in the money laundering and assets beyond means case. The prosecutor said the investigation officer of the case didn’t get any court orders regarding the production of Hamza Shahbaz. The counsel of Hamza intervened, saying that on the last hearing, the court had clearly ordered production of Hamza in this case. The counsel said the NAB intentionally violated court orders.

Meanwhile, the PML-N president who is also a nominated accused in the Ramzan Sugar Mills case came to the dock and said Hamza was due but the NAB didn’t produce him. He said he respected the law but sometimes couldn’t attend court proceedings due to back pain. Interestingly, Shahbaz Sharif delivered a speech in the courtroom regarding a Daily Mail story. He said stealing from earthquake victims money is like "feeding on corpses". He said allegations in the British newspaper against him were absurd, false and baseless. “I have written a letter to the prime minister, inquiring where was NAB when the alleged money-laundering was being carried out by an official working for the Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Authority,” Shahbaz said and added Naveed Akram committed corruption and “our government arrested him and his son even the ladies of Akram’s family were arrested”. "It was painful for me that women got arrested but I took action for the sake of the country," Shahbaz said and questioned why was the fictitious story published. He said the story brought a bad name to the country. He said if he had committed any corruption, ERRA officials should also have been presented in the court as well. On this, the court remarked that he (Shahbaz) should talk about the case pending before the court instead of talking about the ERRA issue. Shahbaz replied that he just wanted to say if he had done any corruption, the case should have been in the court. The court directed the NAB to produce Hamza on the next hearing on August 1 and adjourned the case.