LAHORE: Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) President Shehbaz Sharif on Wednesday said he has been implicated in a false money laundering case and insisted not a single accusation against him was proven in a court of law.
During a hearing in the case, the accountability court recorded the statement of another witness, Bilal, in the case.
When Shehbaz sought the formation of a medical board to look after him, the latter replied he was yet to take a decision on his request.
Responding to the PML-N president’s assertion that corruption of not a single penny could be proved against him, the judge told him to let his counsel speak on his behalf.
“You need not speak since your lawyer will bring forth all details in the case,” the judge told Sharif.
Former Punjab chief minister claimed that a false story was published against him in a leading UK publication, Daily Mail, and the British government had declared it fabricated. “You will notice savings, not graft, in my [government’s] projects,” PML-N president boasted.
The reference mainly accused Shehbaz of being a beneficiary of assets held in the name of his family members and benamidars, who had no sources to acquire such assets.
It said the family members and benamidars of the Shehbaz family received fake foreign remittances of billions in their personal bank accounts. In addition to these remittances, the bureau said, billions of rupees were laundered by way of foreign pay orders, which were deposited in personal bank accounts of Hamza and Suleman.
The reference further said the family of Shehbaz failed to justify the sources of funds used for the acquisition of assets.
It said the suspects committed offences of corruption and corrupt practices as envisaged under the provisions of National Accountability Ordinance, 1999, and money laundering as delineated in the Anti-Money Laundering Act, 2010. It asked the trial court to try the suspects and punish them under the law.
