ISLAMABAD: Ousted prime minister Nawaz Sharif, his daughter Maryam Nawaz, and son-in-law Capt (retd) Safdar arrived today at an accountability court hearing corruption references against them.
This is the second time they jointly appear before the court since beginning of the trial on September 26.
Though, the court had exempted the three members of the Sharif family from appearing before it today, but they decided to show up to witness the proceedings.
Judge Mohammad Bashir is currently hearing arguments on a request by the former prime minister for conducting a joint trial of all the three references filed against him and members of his family by National Accountability Bureau (NAB).
Sharif’s counsel and the NAB prosecutor are presenting their arguments on the plea for clubbing the references into a single case.
At the last hearing, NAB deputy prosecutor general had told the court that a bench of Islamabad High Court had passed an order, directing the trial court to rehear the application seeking clubbing together three references.
Sharif’s lawyer, Khawaja Haris, had pointed out that in case the references are clubbed together, the court will need to frame charges against the Sharif family again.
An Islamabad High Court bench a day earlier had granted Sharif’s request for clubbing together three corruption references filed against him by NAB, and revoke the trial court’s Oct 19 verdict, directing it to reconsider the case.
In his plea, Sharif’s lawyer argued that the Supreme Court’s July 28 verdict in the Panama Papers case had not asked the NAB to file the references separately. Thus, he added, separate references can not be filed against him, requesting the court to club together all three references.
