Daily Times

Former prime minister Nawaz Sharif Thursday said the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) was always ready for early elections in the country, a private TV channel reported.

In an informal conversation with journalists before the hearing of the Flagship Investments reference at the accountability court, the PML-N supremo said Prime Minister Imran Khan’s statement regarding early elections had been welcomed by the people, who, he said, wanted the government to go now.

Earlier during the hearing of the case, Nawaz Sharif kept clinging on to the no-defence policy in the corruption references filed by the National Accountability Bureau in light of Supreme Court’s Panama verdict.

As accountability court judge Arshad Malik resumed hearing on Thursday in the Flagship reference, Nawaz refused to present the defence.

It is impertinent to mention here that he had adopted the same stance in the Avenfield and Al Azizia cases. In his verbal statement, Nawaz asserted that the anti-graft watchdog had failed to present concrete evidence linking him to corruption, hence he did not need to present a defence. “The allegations against me are baseless. The cases are founded on assumptions,” he said. “Even assets beyond income claim could not be proved,” he added.

Nawaz claimed to have documents from 1937 to 1973 detailing businesses owned by the family. “We had over a thousand workers employed by Ittefaq Foundry. We had a mill in Dhaka as well,” he said, and blamed former president General (r) Pervez Musharraf for confiscating the records. Nawaz asked NAB to prove that he gave money for the purchase of assets. “Over 8 million Pakistanis have businesses abroad. Will the prosecution initiate cases against all of them? If not, then why only me?”

Published in Daily Times, December 7^th 2018.