ISLAMABAD: The Islamabad High Court (IHC) granted 14-day interim bail to the son of the prime minister, Suleman Shahbaz, in two separate cases of money laundering and accumulation of unexplained wealth.
Shahbaz, one of the two sons of Shahbaz Sharif, returned home Sunday after four years in London in self-imposed exile “to face investigation” in the money laundering case which began in 2018, his Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) party said.
The Rs16 billion money laundering scandal involving members of his family, including Sharif, is being probed by the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) while the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has nominated him in the wealth reference.
He has been declared a proclaimed offender in both investigations.
Last week, the high court barred the two agencies from arresting him in the wealth reference while hearing his petition for protective bail to enable him to surrender before a trial court.
On Tuesday, to obtain bail in the money laundering case, Shahbaz appeared before the court alongside his counsel, Amjad Pervez. Pervez informed the judge his client was scheduled to appear before a special court in Lahore, which is hearing the case, and, therefore, needed the bail. At this, the judge approved his request for protective bail and ordered him to appear before the said court.
Later, Shahbaz appeared before a division bench, comprising high court’s Chief Justice Aamer Farooq and Justice Sardar Ejaz Ishaq Khan, to seek protective bail in the second reference.
His lawyer, Parvez, also attended the hearing, where Shahbaz’s protective bail was approved for 14 days.
The money laundering reference mainly accused Sharif 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 members and benamidars of his 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 the personal bank accounts of Sharif’s two sons.
The reference further said the Sharif family 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 the National Accountability Ordinance, 1999, and money laundering as delineated in the Anti-Money Laundering Act, 2010.
The agency also asked the trial court to try the suspects and punish them under the law.
Sharif and his other son, Hamza Shahbaz, were acquitted of the charges by a court in October but Shahbaz could not be tried after he fled to London in 2018.
