ISLAMABAD: Accountability Court on Tuesday resumed recording former Prime Minister (PM) Nawaz Sharif’s statement in Avenfield reference case.
During the statement recording Sharif refuted any claims of his association or involvement in any business dealings with the Qatari family.
Sharif along with daughter Maryam Nawaz and son-in-law Captain (r) Safdar appeared before the court.
During the case proceedings, Sharif claimed that on January 5, 2017 Jerry Freeman had verified the trust deeds of Comber group, Nielson and Nescoll as he had a copy of the trust deeds at his office.
Sharif also added that Qatari Prince’s letters were verified by Prince Hamad Bin Jassim Bin Jabor al Thani himself by writing to the Supreme Court (SC).
Former PM remarked that the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) had not even recorded Qatari Prince’s statement.
Sharif again raised objections on the Panama Papers JIT head Wajid Zia for employing services of his counsin Akhtar Raja’s company during the investigation. He said that Raja along with three-member NAB team had met Robert Radley, however, his report has no value as NAB team did not have the original documents.
Nawaz added that Raja’s statement in court was biased. Sharif informed the court, claiming that Akhtar or the investigating officer had made no efforts to obtain the copies of the trust deeds from Freeman.
Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N) Quaid claimed that Raja had sent the photocopies for forensics in haste, adding that Akhtar should’ve known that there is no forensic review of photocopies. Sharif asserted that the forensic expert was hesitant to conduct examination of the documents.
During the court proceedings, Nawaz informed the court that he had no involvement in Dubai Steel Mills, since he had only attended the inauguration ceremony.
Furthermore, former PM claimed that he never owned, directed or was a shareholder of Capital FZE as he was never a party of the company’s business dealings.
While referring to UAE’s Justice Ministry’s letter, Sharif remarked that he wasn’t aware if the letter came in response to any mutual legal assistance. He added that since the letter was never presented in the court thus it cannot be used as evidence against him.
Sharif also claimed that the Mosaic Fonseca presented by Zia could not be used as a primary document as the letter could not be certified as per customary laws.
During the proceedings National Accountability Bureau’s (NAB) prosecutor objected over the way Nawaz was recording his statement.
NAB prosecutor maintained the view that the accused should record his statement with help from his defense but should not be read out by the defense himself.
In response to the prosecutor, Judge Mohammad Bashir questioned NAB prosecutor what he was trying to say to which he said that his objections should be made part of the courts record.
Following the prosecutors objection, Nawaz said that he owned his statements, which were prepared with the help his legal counsel Khawaja Haris. Adding that his counsel was reading out the statement because he had a throat problem due to which reading out for too long hurt his throat.
Sharid said that if the court had any objections, it should have raised them during Monday’s hearing.
However, Nawaz started reading the statement himself following NAB prosecutor’s objections.
During the hearing, the court confiscated PML-N’s member of provincial Assembly Maiza Hameed’s cell phone for using it in the courtroom. The irked judge said that using mobile phones in the court are against its decorum.
Sharif and family are recording their statements in Avenfield reference case filed by NAB.