A National Accountability Bureau (NAB) deputy prosecutor general told the accountability court on Wednesday that the Sharif family had failed to provide details of its sources of earnings.
DAG Sardar Muzaffar Abbasi made these remarks while presenting closing arguments in the Avenfield properties reference.
The Avenfield reference is among three references filed against the Sharif family by the NAB following the Supreme Court’s directives in the Panama Papers case.
During the hearing on Wednesday, the prosecutor accused PML-N leader Maryam Nawaz of hiding facts and misleading investigators.
Muzaffar Abbasi further said that Maryam’s brother Hussain Nawaz had moved to the London flats in 1993 as he paid utility bills during the year. The other brother Hasan Nawaz moved to the flat in 1994, he said.
“Muhammad Nawaz Sharif was the actual owner of Gulf Steel Mills,” he said.
Nawaz also appeared before the accountability court on Wednesday but left after marking his attendance.
As the hearing went underway, Zafar Khan, the counsel for Maryam and her husband Captain (retd) Safdar, filed a one-day exemption plea for his clients. He informed the court that Safdar was in Mansehra to obtain nomination papers for elections.
Accountability Judge Muhammad Bashir, who was presiding over the case, approved the request.
The hearing was delayed till June 7 (today).
On Tuesday, the accountability court had dismissed the miscellaneous petition, submitted by former PM Nawaz Sharif, requesting for final arguments in all the three references against the Sharif family to be heard together.
“You may challenge this verdict in the high court,” the judge said, after dismissing the petition.
Filing the petition, deputy defense counsel Saad Hashmi claimed that the NAB’s claims that the facts in all three references were different was ‘incorrect”.
“NAB brought Gulf Steel Mills, Qatari letter in all the references,” he said, adding that the witnesses in the references were also the same.
All three references have been formed on the basis of Panama Papers JIT report, which was ordered by the apex court to probe assets of the Sharif family, Hashmi added.
Published in Daily Times, June 7th 2018.
