Shahbaz moves LHC for post-arrest bail

LAHORE: Leader of Opposition in National Assembly Shahbaz Sharif on Friday approached the Lahore High Court for a post-arrest bail in a reference of money laundering and illegal assets five months after he was sent to jail on judicial remand by a trial court.

The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) had arrested Shahbaz on September 28, 2020 after the LHC dismissed his pre-arrest bail in the reference.

The petition filed through Amjad Pervez contends that the proceedings against Shahbaz by the NAB have been prompted by mala fide intention, ulterior motives and considerations extraneous to the law. It alleges that the registration of back-to-back cases and repeated arrests of the petitioner at the behest of the government have been a classic example of misuse of process of NAB to muffle the voice of the petitioner as leader of the opposition.

It says that the bureau failed to collect an iota of evidence of any corruption, kickbacks, misuse of any public office for personal gain by the petitioner throughout his political career. Shahbaz extended full cooperation, entered appearance and furnished whatever information and record could be available to the investigation team as to his assets and liabilities domestic or abroad and nothing has been concealed, claims the petition. It also cites health issues of Shahbaz being 70-year-old and the delay in trial proceedings, saying that testimony of eight out of 110 prosecution witnesses has so far been completed.

In this reference, six out of ten indicted suspects have already been released on post-arrest bail including Shahbaz’s son Hamza Shahbaz, Muhammad Mushtaq Cheeni, Shahid Rafiq, Aftab Mahmood, Fazal Dad Abbasi and Shoaib Qamar.

Shahbaz’s wife Nusrat, son Suleman, daughter Rabia Imran and son-in-law Haroon Yousaf have been declared absconders in the reference by the trial court.