LAHORE: The Lahore High Court (LHC) on Monday served a notice on Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) Vice President Maryam Nawaz in a National Accountability Bureau (NAB) request seeking to cancel her bail in the Chaudhry Sugar Mills (CSM) reference.
In November 2019, the high court granted post-arrest bail to Maryam in the reference but directed her to surrender her passport as the prosecution feared she might flee the country.
Last week, the dirty money watchdog challenged the bail in the court, adopting a stance that the PML-N leader is taking “undue benefit” of her freedom and has withdrawn her cooperation in the probe into her assets despite being offered a reprieve.
During the proceedings on Monday, a NAB prosecutor, Faisal Raza Bokhari, told the court that Maryam is out on bail and is issuing statements targeting state institutions.
Maryam, he said, is not cooperating with the agency in its investigations into her assets and has not provided relevant documents required for the probe.
Subsequently, the court directed Maryam to submit her response by April 7 and adjourned the proceedings
‘NAB NOT AUTHORISED TO JUDGE MY STATEMENTS’:
Speaking to reporters before leaving from her Jati Umra residence for the hearing, Maryam hit back at the agency for “making an issue about my statements”.
“[…] your job was to supposedly stop rampant corruption. Now that you’ve failed in that [sic], have you changed your responsibilities?” she said.
Since institutions such as the military and the courts had their own spokespersons, who had appointed NAB as their spokesperson, she asked.
NAB had in its petition submitted to the high court on Saturday accused Maryam of non-compliance with its directives. In her talk on Monday, she said the bureau had uttered a “great lie” about her obstructing the investigation.
“I presented myself at the NAB office for the hearing,” she said, adding that the institution resorted to delaying tactics and did not attend to her.
“For three months on the pretext of investigations you kept me in NAB and what did you do?” said Maryam, adding that nothing but trivial and unrelated questions had been asked of her.
She claimed NAB had still not been able to successfully register a reference against her over the charges she had been arrested for.
THE CASE:
NAB suspects Maryam of involvement in money laundering through investments of variable heavy amounts being the main shareholder of the CSM. It has alleged that she was involved in money laundering with the help of some foreigners during the period of 1992-93 when her father Nawaz Sharif was the prime minister.
The agency informed the court that the PML-N vice president had not been able to give satisfactory answers to its inquiries regarding her shares in the mills. She was also unable to explain how she attained the funds to establish Shamim Sugar Mills, it said.
It further said that Maryam had not filed her tax returns for many years and was suspected of being in possession of assets beyond known means.
