Court set to hear Nawaz sons' plea on 19th

An accountability court in Islamabad has given the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) until March 19 to prepare arguments and submit records of the references in which former prime minister Nawaz Sharif’s sons, Hassan and Hussain, were co-accused.

Islamabad Accountability Court-I Judge Nasir Javed Rana resumed hearing Hassan and Hussain's plea for their acquittal in the Flagship, Al-Azizia, and Avenfield references on Friday.

Advocate Qazi Misbah appeared on behalf of Hassan and Hussain along with the pleader of the accused, Rana Irfan. Hassan and Hussain had requested exemption from attending Friday's hearing, a request which the court accepted.

Prosecutors Afzal Qureshi, Sohail Arif, and Mirza Usman appeared in court on behalf of NAB. They requested the court to grant them time to prepare arguments as well as present the relevant record. The court granted NAB time until March 19.

A day earlier, on Thursday, Hassan and Hussain received significant relief as the accountability court revoked its earlier order declaring them proclaimed offenders and canceled their permanent arrest warrants.

Read Nawaz’s sons get court relief

Hassan and Hussain had returned to Pakistan on March 12 after the same judge suspended their arrest warrants on March 7.

They were named as accused along with Nawaz Sharif in all three references—the Avenfield case, the Flagship case, and the Al-Azizia case—filed by NAB in July 2017 on the order of the Supreme Court following the Panama Papers scandal.

As the brothers, who live in the United Kingdom, did not attend the legal proceedings, the courts that heard these cases had declared them proclaimed offenders and issued permanent arrest warrants.

Last year, the Islamabad High Court (IHC) acquitted Nawaz Sharif in both the Avenfield and Al-Azizia cases on November 29 and December 12, 2023, respectively. Meanwhile, NAB withdrew its appeal against an accountability court’s verdict to acquit Nawaz in the Flagship reference.

During the hearing on Friday, Judge Nasir Javed Rana told the lawyers that he has the charge of Islamabad Accountability Court-I and -III, while he is also the duty judge for Islamabad Accountability Court-II. “The charge for Accountability Court-II has also been assigned to me. The notification will be issued today," he said.