An accountability court in Lahore on Friday indicted Nusrat Shehbaz - wife of PML-N President Shehbaz Sharif – in a money laundering reference.
The court indicted her through a pleader as Nusrat did not appear in person.
Last December, an accountability court declared Nusrat a proclaimed offender in the reference and ordered cross-examination of three witnesses in the case.
In March, a Lahore High Court division bench, headed by Justice Sardar Muhammad Sarfraz Dogar, set aside a trial court order against the former chief minister’s wife after her counsel accepted three conditions set by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB).
The petitioner had challenged an accountability court's order of dismissing her application, seeking exemption from appearance in the proceedings, issuing her arrest warrant and starting the process to declare her a proclaimed offender.
On Friday, the court also summoned NAB witnesses on the next hearing while accepting Shehbaz’s plea seeking exemption from court appearance.
The case was adjourned till October 18.
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Furthermore, the accountability court also heard a petition against freezing the assets of Shehbaz’s family members.
The court sought a reply from the counsels of Shehbaz’s family at the next hearing. The petition was filed by Hamza Shehbaz and Nusrat.
In August last year, NAB had filed a Rs8 billion money laundering reference in an accountability court against Shehbaz, his wife, two sons and other family members.
In the reference, Shehbaz has been accused of being a beneficiary of assets held in the name of his family members and ‘benamidars’, who had no means of acquiring such assets.
It said the family members and benamidars of the Shehbaz family received fake foreign remittances of billions in their personal bank accounts.
Further, NAB said that billions of rupees were laundered by way of foreign pay orders which were deposited in the personal bank accounts of Hamza and Suleman.
It said the suspects committed offences of corruption and corrupt practices as envisaged under the provisions of National Accountability Ordinance 1999 and money laundering as delineated in the Anti-Money Laundering Act 2010.
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