Daily Times

Hanif Abbasi, the leader of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), was freed from the ephedrine quota case on Wednesday by the Lahore High Court (LHC), which also ruled that his lifetime sentence was invalid.

The decision on Abbasi’s appeal against the conviction was made public by a two-member LHC court. The decision had been reserved a day earlier.

The bench, consisting of Justice Aalia Neelum and Justice Asjad Javed Ghural, had reserved the judgement following the hearing of the closing arguments from counsel for the appellant and the government.

A few days before the July 21 general elections in 2018, Abbasi was given a life sentence for controlling narcotics substances (CNS) and fined Rs. 1 million by a special court.

The Anti-Narcotics Force (ANF) filed the case against him and the other co-accused in 2012 under Sections 9-C, 14 and 15 of the Control of Narcotics Substances (CNS) Act for the usage of 500 kg of ephedrine. He was running for office against Sheikh Rashid Ahmad of the Awami Muslim League in NA-60, Rawalpindi, however he was disqualified after being found guilty.

Abbasi claimed in his appeal that the verdict was politically motivated because only the appellant out of the eight accused in the case had been found guilty. It claimed that although the appellant never exceeded his allotted amount of ephedrine, the trial court disregarded fundamental legal requirements when imposing the impinged sentence.

It claimed that ephedrine did not fit the criteria of a controlled substance or a scheduled drug, but the trial judge cited a Google description of ephedrine.

Speaking to the media following the verdict, Abbasi said that he battled the case for 11 years and was imprisoned for a total of 11 months as a result.

“I was kept away from two elections (due to the case) and my daughter was also kicked out from her job,” Abbasi claimed. He also shared that his younger brother was kept in illegal confinement for 14 days because of this.

“If Sheikh Rashid contests the election then the competition will be in the polls,” said Abbasi.