Shehbaz's indictment put off

A special court in Lahore on Friday delayed the indictment of PML-N President Shehbaz Sharif, his son Hamza and others for their alleged involvement in laundering billions of rupees in a sugar scam case.

Special Court Judge Ijazul Ahsan Awan, who presided over the hearing of the case, also extended the bails of the accused till February 28.

During the proceedings, the counsel representing the PML-N leader said the copies of the challan shared by the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) were not legible due to their poor print quality.

“The bank officials did not share the copies of 164 statements with us,” the counsel added.

The court ordered the FIA to share new “visible” copies with Shehbaz’s legal team.

A heated exchange of words took place between the lawyers representing the FIA and the Sharif family after the agency’s counsel interrupted Shehbaz, who was shedding light over the whole case which according to him was based upon a “concocted” story.

On receiving permission from the court, the leader of the opposition in the National Assembly said he had been arrested twice and the FIA had visited him in jail, handing over a questionnaire to him.

He added that the FIA had also sent its challan to London. The UK’s National Crime Agency was provided records against him and his sons by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) and the FIA. He continued that his as well as his sons’ assets in the UK were frozen, but nothing was proved against them.

The FIA lawyers interrupted him to which Shehbaz replied: “I am addressing the court.” PML-N’s Atta Tarar responded to the FIA lawyers that do not teach them as to how to present their case.

Shehbaz and his son Hamza in their earlier bail pleas had contended that the version of the FIA had nothing to do with reality. They had submitted that they had been implicated in a forged case merely to humiliate them and the allegations levelled against them by the concerned quarters were false and incorrect. They had implored the court that the FIA issued them notice of June 22 to join the investigation while the truth was that NAB had already carried the probe into the same allegations of money laundering.

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They had added that they wanted to appear before the investigation team but they feared of being arrested at the hands of FIA as there were examples relating to their arrests when they had been summoned in a different nature case but arrested in another matter. So they prayed the court to grant them pre-arrest bails.

After the hearing, the PML-N president while talking to media outside the court said the National Assembly session was postponed because of the date of his indictment given by the court last week.

Shehbaz maintained that the FIA had wanted the court to change the indictment date. “They wanted to change the date so I could not skip the hearing on account of the assembly session’,” he added.

“However, the government has changed the date of the assembly session,” Shehbaz said, adding that the government wanted to frame the charges against him today but “Allah is almighty”.

Last week, the special court had decided to indict the PML-N president, his sons Hamza and Suleman and others on Friday.

The FIA had booked Shehbaz, Hamza and Suleman Shehbaz in November 2020 under sections 419, 420, 468, 471, 34 and 109 — financial fraud, impersonation and forgery — of the Pakistan Penal Code and 5(2) and 5(3) — criminal misconduct — of Prevention of Corruption Act and r/w 3/4 of Anti Money Laundering Act.