Daily Times

Opposition Leader in the National Assembly Shehbaz Sharif moved the Lahore High Court (LHC) on Friday to get bail in the money laundering reference.

The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) president has filed his bail petition in the money laundering reference through his counsel Amjad Pervaiz, making the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) and others as parties.

The petition said that the money laundering reference has been filed while the trial of the case is also underway in the accountability court that will take a long time. Sharif stated that he has been kept in jail for months and it will take time to conclude the trial in the case.

The petition further stated that all records are with the anti-corruption watchdog and no recovery is due to be made in the case. It read that Shehbaz Sharif could not fulfil his constitutional responsibilities as the opposition leader due to being jailed. He is continuously attending the hearing, hence the court is requested to issue his release on bail, it added.

Earlier on November 11, an accountability court indicted Shehbaz Sharif, his son and Opposition Leader in Punjab Assembly Hamza Shehbaz and other accused in a money laundering case.

Pleading innocence, Shehbaz had stated that the case instituted by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) was based on mala fide intentions. He said higher courts raised questions over the bureau’s actions, accusing the national graft buster of being involved in “political engineering”. “Not a shred of evidence against us has been produced,” he maintained.

Hamza, the Punjab Assembly’s opposition leader, assailed the NAB terming the charges baseless.

Shehbaz is accused of accumulating assets worth Rs7,328 million in connivance with his co-accused family members, benamidars, front persons and close associations and for developing an organized system of money laundering.

The anti-graft watchdog has nominated a total of 20 individuals in the reference including Shahbaz’s wife Nusrat, his sons Hamza and Suleman, and daughters Rabia Imran and Javeria Ali.

The NAB accused the PML-N president of committing corruption as envisaged under the National Accountability Ordinance 1999 and money laundering as outlined in the Anti-Money Laundering Act 2010. It said that the accused “created fake sources of income” to “justify the assets” acquired beyond known sources of income.

On September 29, Shahbaz was arrested by NAB after his counsel withdrew his bail plea from the Lahore High Court (LHC) in the money laundering case.