Court gives a clean bill to PM Nawaz

An accountability court acquitted PM Sharif and members of his immediate family in the Ittefaq Foundries loan scam.

RAWALPINDI:

An accountability court on Thursday acquitted Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and members of his immediate family who were implicated in the Ittefaq Foundries loan scam case.

Rejecting National Accountability Bureau’s (NAB) request to reopen an investigation into the case, Judge Sohail Nasir of the accountability court in Rawalpindi acquitted all members of the Sharif family, including Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz, Kulsoom Nawaz and Ittefaq Foundries’ directors in the case that has haunted them for decades.

While ruling in favour of the premier’s family, the court said that the case against the foundry was based on political revenge as there was no dispute between the Sharif family and the National Bank of Pakistan (NBP).

On December 10, 1999, Zonal Chief and Manager National Bank Wapda House Lahore addressed a complaint to the anti-graft body against the Sharif family’s industrial empire. He claimed that the company owed over Rs1 billion to the bank. The complainant stated that the incumbent prime minister on June 11, 1998, announced that he would hand over his assets to the creditor banks in a bid to pay back the loan owed by the Sharif family.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 29^th, 2015.