Assets beyond means reference: Court adjourns hearing as counsel for Shahbaz faces health issues

LAHORE: The Accountability Court on Monday adjourned hearing of money-laundering and assets beyond means reference against Shahbaz and family for January 6 as the counsel for Shahbaz couldn’t join it due to health issues.

The jail authorities produced Shahbaz Sharif and his son Hamza Shahbaz before the court amid tight security as heavy contingents of the law enforcement agencies had cordoned off the court premises.

During the course of hearing, Shahbaz complained that issue of constitution of medical board for his health had not yet been resolved, to which the judge asked Shahbaz to submit a written application in this regard. About Chinniot mining case against PTI minister Sibtain Khan, Shahbaz said that he was the first who took up this matter and recovered billions of public exchequers, claiming that it was he (Shahbaz) who recovered billions not the NAB.

Previously, the court had declared PML-N President Shahbaz Sharif’s wife Nusrat Shahbaz as proclaimed offender in this case. The court had also declared Shahbaz’s son Suleman Shahbaz, daughter Rabia Imran and son-in-law Ali Imran Yousaf as proclaimed offenders in reference against Shahbaz family. The court had started proceeding against Shahbaz family by declaring them absconders after they didn’t join the trial proceedings. The court had also declared three other accused as proclaimed offenders in this case including Haroon Yousaf, Tahir Naqvi and Ali Ahmad Khan. In the reference against Shahbaz family, the National Accountability Bureau had claimed that in the last 30 years, the Shahbaz family assets ballooned from Rs 2 million to Rs 7,000 million that the family had failed to justify.

The NAB alleged accused Shahbaz Sharif in connivance with his co-accused family members, Benamidars, front men, close associates, employees and moneychangers had developed an organized system of money-laundering for accumulation of assets disproportionate to his known sources of income to the tune of Rs 7,328 million.

PML-N General Secretary Ahsan Iqbal while talking to the media after the hearing said that it has been 100 days since Shahbaz Sharif has been arrested but the government has not been able to prove corruption of even 100 paisas. This government is taking political revenge by making false cases, Ahsan said. He questioned that the NAB spent Rs. 4 billion to track down Nawaz Sharif's assets, who will sue the NAB and compensate for the loss?

“The government has completely failed to enforce writ of the law as a youth has been killed in Islamabad and the miners in Balochistan.” Ahsan said that the Prime Minister says that inflation is coming so the nation should be ready. “The job of the Prime Minister is not to inform but to take practical steps to counter such crises,” Ahsan said. Ahsan Iqbal said that the extension of the Army Chief is an executive decision of the Prime Minister. The assembly made the law on the order of the Supreme Court. It is the discretion of the Prime Minister to give or not give extension to the Army Chief.