NAB resumed cases to victimise PML-N: Lawyer

Leaders of PML-N never caused any interruption in prosecution and investigation, says lawyer.

RAWALPINDI:

The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) only reopened the three corruption references against Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz’s (PML-N) leadership months before the general elections to victimise Nawaz Sharif and Shahbaz Sharif, their lawyer said on Monday.

Advocate Suleman Butt – the lawyer representing the Sharif family in the petitions seeking annulment of the references – told the Rawalpindi bench of the Lahore High Court (LHC) that in 2007 NAB had sought the resumption of the three pending corruption references against the Sharif family when Nawaz announced to return to Pakistan just before the 2008 general elections.

Justice Khawaja Imtiaz Ahmed and Justice Muhammad Farrukh Irfan Khan of the LHC’s Rawalpindi bench will take up the three identical petitions again since the lawyers representing the Sharif family have been arguing to quash these references.

Advocate Butt stated that NAB only wanted to malign and victimise the leaders of PML-N as the accused never caused any interruption in the prosecution and investigation.

“For over seven years the prosecution did not try to resume the three corruption references adjourned sine die in 2000 when the PML-N leaders were exiled,” he said.

It was in October last year that the high court stopped NAB and the accountability court from continuing proceedings against the Sharifs as long as their petition against the references was pending in the LHC.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 9^th, 2012.