The Islamabad High Court (IHC) acquitted Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) Vice President Maryam Nawaz and her husband Muhammad Safdar, reversing the 2018 judgement that held them guilty of concealing former Prime Minister (PM) Nawaz Sharif’s luxurious apartment properties in London.
The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) opposed the acquittal, highlighting that Sharif had hidden the assets through his daughter. However, the judge said the properties belonged to Nielsen and Nescoll companies and demanded evidence to prove the NAB’s claims.
In response, the NAB representative stressed that Wajid Zia, the former director of the Federal Investigation Agency, has confirmed the claims against the Sharifs. However, the IHC argued that Zia’s opinion was not factual, and therefore could not be considered as evidence. The court also clarified that the Sharif family did not have to defend themselves, as it was the NAB’s duty to provide evidence to prove their conviction.
Keeping this in mind, the two-judge bench reversed the NAB’s conviction, declaring that the Bureau had failed to prove its case against the Sharif family.
اللہ تعالیٰ کا بہت شکر ہے.آپکو یاد ہوگا میں نے کئی سال پہلے کہا تھا کہ میں نے اپنا معاملہ اللہ پہ چھوڑ دیا ہے آج اللہ تعالیٰ نے حق کو غالب فرمایا ہے.انسان سچا ہو تو اللہ بھی اسکا ساتھ نہیں چھوڑتا الحمدللہ میں اللہ تعالیٰ کا بڑا شکرگزار ہوں.@NawazSharifMNS pic.twitter.com/csHkisAi5v
— PML(N) (@pmln_org) September 29, 2022
The IHC acquitted the Sharif family on corruption charges in the 2018 Avenfield apartment case, which the then-court held was disproportionate to Nawaz Sharif’s declared income. As a result, he was awarded a ten-year imprisonment and an additional year for not cooperating with the NAB. In 2019, he was given bail to seek medical treatment in the United Kingdom (UK) and has not returned.
Likewise, his daughter Maryam Nawaz was given a seven-year sentence for aiding in the “concealment of the properties of her father.” Her husband Safdar was sentenced to one year in jail for non-cooperation with the NAB and aiding and abetting his wife and the former PM.
Thereafter, the Sharifs approached the IHC in August 2018 and were released on bail after their sentences were suspended in September 2018. In October 2021, Nawaz filed a fresh appeal with “extremely relevant, simple, and clear-cut facts.” In the appeal, she said that the 2018 conviction was a “classic example of outright violations of law and political engineering hitherto unheard of in the history of Pakistan.”
Following the IHC judgement on Thursday, Nawaz said she had been “vindicated.” She also called former PM Imran Khan a “liar” and a “conspirator” who could have never won the election against Sharif without the conspiracy that led to their conviction in 2018.
The edifice of lies, slander & character assassination has come crumbling down today. Maryam Nawaz's acquittal in the Avenfield Reference is a slap in the face of so-called accountability system that was employed to target Sharif family. My congratulations to Maryam Beti & Safdar
— Shehbaz Sharif (@CMShehbaz) September 29, 2022
Similarly, PM Shehbaz Sharif, Maryam Nawaz’s uncle, said the acquittal was evidence of the “edifice of lies, slander, and character assassination” that his predecessor’s government had deployed to crush the opposition. “Maryam’s acquittal in the Avenfield reference is a slap in the face of so-called accountability system that was employed to target the Sharif family,” he added.
Likewise, Nawaz Sharif said the cases against him and his daughter were “baseless.” He accused the court of “hastily” announcing the judgements in 2018 to prevent them from contesting the elections that year. In this respect, though the reversal makes her eligible to contest elections now, Nawaz did not confirm participating in the next elections.
On the other hand, the verdict has attracted criticism from opposition leader Khan’s Pakistani Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) party, with PTI Secretary-General Asad Umar reiterating that the cases against the Sharifs were the “real reason” for the campaign to oust Khan in a no-confidence vote in April.
The IHC’s decision comes amid an ongoing controversy instigated by a leaked tape that recorded Maryam urging her uncle, the current PM, to increase fuel prices despite publicly opposing it. The PM has initiated an investigation into the leaks, which he called a “very serious lapse.” In total, four such recordings have been leaked so far.