Daily Times

The Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Tuesday approved an application seeking the transfer of Al-Azizia and Flagship Investment references against former premier Nawaz Sharif and his family to another court.

A two-member bench of the IHC, comprising Justice Mian Gul Hassan and Justice Amir Farooq, had ordered transfer of the cases from the court of Accountability Judge-I Mohammad Bashir to another accountability court. Nawaz’s legal counsel Khawaja Haris had filed an appeal requesting the court to transfer the Al-Azizia and Flagship Investment references, arguing that the references filed by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) against the Sharif family members had a common witness, JIT head Wajid Zia, while the presiding judge of the accountability court, Judge Muhammad Bashir, had already disclosed his opinion on crucial aspects in all three references. He asked the court to transfer the cases to a judge who could view the facts with a fresh perspective.

At the onset of the hearing, NAB Additional Deputy Prosecutor General Sardar Muzaffar Abbasi said that the defence had earlier requested a joint testimony of witnesses in all three corruption references against the Sharif family, and added that the defence counsel could not cross-examine joint witnesses. Requesting the court to keep the cases before the same accountability court “in the interest of justice”, he said that Judge Bashir was the senior-most in the subordinate judiciary of Islamabad.

He added that since the judge had heard all references against Sharif, his daughter Maryam Nawaz and her husband Captain (retd) Safdar, the remaining references should also be heard by him.

Without hearing the plea against conviction of Captain (retired) Safdar Awan in the Avenfield reference, the court adjourned it till Wednesday (tomorrow). Nawaz and daughter Maryam’s plea against conviction in the same case was adjourned till Monday.

Published in Daily Times, August 8^th 2018.