ISLAMABAD: Accountability court on Monday resumed hearing final arguments of the defense in Avenfield reference case.
During the hearing, Judge Bashir observed that none of the accused were present in court, as Nawaz along with daughter Maryam Nawaz are in London owing to Begum Kulsoom’s unstable condition.
Lead counsel, Khawaja Haris informed the court that Captain (r) Safdar will be arriving shortly, while for the latter two, another request will be filed for exemption once Kulsoom Nawaz’s June 22 medical report is printed.
Captain (r) Safdar then reached the courtroom.
Khawaja Haris resumed presentation of concluding arguments, referring to prosecution star witness’s second part of the statement, Haris asserted that Panamagate Joint Investigation Team (JIT) report was unacceptable as evidence in Avenfield reference.
He added that the documents not presented by his client, could not be used against him. Haris asserted that the investigation officer’s opinion could not be considered as admissible evidence.
Haris argued that the Qatari prince’s letters in response to Sharif’s queries sent to the JIT were irrelevant in the case.
Defense counsel added that the JIT had mentioned of contradictions in the two letters, arguing that this was the court’s job to discuss the contradictions rather than JIT’s.
Haris argued that the JIT report had in total mentioned Nawaz on only one page (page 28), adding that the JIT head could only present the letters in the court but could not have stated any opinion on them.
He further went on saying that the JIT head Wajid Zia had maintained the view that the accused had not submitted documents pertaining to the payment of Avenfield properties whereas the whole indictment had been based on the JIT report.
The lead defense counsel added that no direct link had been established of the reference case with his client uptil now.
Haris asserted that JIT head had only given his opinion in the report over the documents, adding that the JIT had claimed to have examined the evidence, questioning if it was within JIT’s jurisdiction to carry out examination of the evidence. He stressed, questioning if it was in fact the court’s job to do what the JIT had done.