Smear campaign: Sharifs say loan default reports baseless

LAHORE: Members of the Sharif family have refuted claims suggesting they were loan defaulters in any way.

A spokesperson for the Sharif family said in a statement on Sunday that whenever the opponents of the Nawaz Sharif and Shahbaz Sharif want to target them, they open the old files of the National Accountability Bureau. The spokesperson said that in presence of the Lahore High Court ruling that the Shahbaz Sharif or the Ittefaq Foundries are not defaulters of any bank, the insulting advertisement campaign against the Sharif family tantamounts to libel and slander.

Calling the stay order against the Sharifs “a conspiracy” he said the allegations are against the historical facts. The order was acquired when the Sharif brothers were outside the country. The spokesperson said that in 2008 the Zardari clique raised the matter but the Supreme Court dismissed the allegations that the Sharif brothers were loan defaulters.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 8^th, 2013.