(PTI)
Islamabad, Nov 8: A Pakistani anti-graft court Wednesday rejected ousted Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s plea to club together three corruption cases against him and used his presence to once again indict him in the Panama Papers case.
The three cases were registered by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) on September 8 against Sharif, his children and son-in-law in the Accountability Court Islamabad, following a verdict by the Supreme Court on July 28. Sharif, 67, had to step down after he was disqualified as the prime minister by the apex court in the Panama case.
Now, Sharif will have to face three separate trials with hearings stretching out for months. Sharif was called to the rostrum and the chargesheets in three cases were read to him. The former prime minister pleaded not guilty to all the charges and contented that he was being deprived of the fair trial as the court was moving in a hurry to decide the case in six months as per direction of the Supreme Court.
Rejecting the plea, Accountability Court Judge Muhammad Bashir said that Sharif would be given fair trial under the law and then postponed the hearing till November 15. Heavy security arrangements were made and hundreds of security personnel deployed around the court premises to deal with any untoward situation. Sharif later told media that Wednesday’s verdict would be written in “black words” in Pakistan’s history.
“I knew that review petition will not be decided in my favour because the judges (who issued the verdict in review petition) are full of vengeance and the decision reflects vengeance and anger. This will become part of black pages of history,” Sharif said. “There are several black pages in the last 70 years of Pakistan history when there were dictators. This judgement (of review petition) will also be written in black words,” he said. Sharif, his daughter Maryam and her husband Capt (retd) Muhammad Safdar were present in the court to hear the verdict. The accountability court had reserved its judgement Tuesday after hearing the arguments by both sides.
