Pak court gives last chance to Nawaz Sharif to appear in corruption case

A court notice was displayed on Monday at the residence of Pakistan's former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, giving him a final chance to appear before it on August 17 in a corruption case.

Sharif, the supremo of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), may be declared proclaimed offender if he does not appear before the court to defend himself in the Toshakhana (treasure house) corruption case.

“Proclamation under section 87 Cr. P.C. is hereby made that the said accused Mian Muhammad Nawaz Sharif is required to appear before this court to answer the said reference on August 17,” the court notice said.

The Accountability Court of Islamabad had recently issued non-bailable arrest warrants against Sharif in the Toshakhana case. Sharif is accused of taking cars from the treasury house by paying 15 percent of the price of these vehicles.

Sharif, former Pakistan president Asif Ali Zardari and former premier Yousuf Raza Gilani are also accused of receiving luxury vehicles and gifts from the treasure house.

Gilani had facilitated Zardari and Nawaz in this respect, alleges the National Accountability Bureau (NAB).

The court has directed the Foreign Office to execute the arrest warrants against Sharif through the Pakistan High Commission in London. He is residing in Avenfield Apartments in the UK.

Sharif, 70, left for London in November after the Lahore High Court granted him four-week permission to go abroad for treatment. He had submitted an undertaking to the court to return to Pakistan citing his record of facing the law and justice within four weeks or as soon as he is declared healthy and fit to travel by doctors.

He was also given bail in the Al-Azizia Mills corruption case in which he was serving a seven-year sentence in Kot Lakhpat Jail and in a money laundering case to facilitate his travel abroad.

Sharif has been diagnosed with “complicated coronary artery/ischemic heart disease. His daughter Maryam Nawaz had said her father was a high-risk patient and therefore, his cardiac catheterisation/coronary intervention had been postponed owing to COVID-19.

Last month, the country's anti-graft body filed a corruption reference against Nawaz Sharif, Jang/Geo media group owner Mir Shakilur Rahman and two others in a land case in the Lahore's accountability court.

According to NAB, Sharif in 1986, when he was the Punjab chief minister, allotted 54 kanal land in Lahore to Mir Shakilur Rehman in violation of rules. Rahman has been on judicial remand after his arrest by the NAB on March 12.

Since Sharif did not respond to any of the NAB's summons and questions, his arrest warrants had already been issued and the bureau announced to have moved the accountability court to declare him a proclaimed offender.

Image credits: PTI