ISLAMABAD: The Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Tuesday adjourned the hearing in appeal of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) vice president Maryam Nawaz against her conviction in a reference pertaining to the ownership of four Avenfield House apartments after a National Accountability Bureau (NAB) prosecutor failed to turn up for health reasons.
Usman Ghani had requested the court to adjourn the session since he was suffering from a “high-grade fever with excruciating body aches and pains” and experienced a “loss of smell and taste” — symptoms of coronavirus infection.
Therefore, Ghani said, he was advised to avoid travel and “observe bed rest”. For this very reason, he was “unable to travel, personally attend and assist” the bench.
A two-judge bench of the court headed by Justice Aamer Farooq took up the petition and accepted Ghani’s request for adjournment.
Irfan Qadir, counsel for Nawaz, and NAB Deputy Prosecutor General Sardar Muzaffar Abbasi also appeared in the court.
Noting his presence, Justice Farooq said Abbasi should have informed Qadir of Ghani’s condition earlier. But Abbasi said he came to know of the prosecutor’s health only on Monday evening.
The court subsequently adjourned the proceedings until January 18.
THE CASE
In July 2018, an accountability court ruled that deposed prime minister Nawaz Sharif and his family laundered money in the 1990s to pay for the luxury apartments in Park Lane, central London, drawing on allegations that resurfaced in the 2016 Panama Papers.
Accountability Court judge Mohammad Bashir sentenced Nawaz to seven years’ imprisonment, fined the family £10m and ordered the seizure of the Avenfield properties. She also received an additional one-year sentence for presenting forged documents in court.
The family has long struggled to explain how the Avenfield flats came into their possession. Family members initially told different stories. During the National Accountability Bureau trial, Sharif’s defence claimed that a Qatari investment fund gave the expensive properties to the family to repay a debt owed to Sharif’s father, Mian Muhammad Sharif.
Commentators in 2017 mocked a letter from a Qatari prince apparently testifying to that deal as a rabbit pulled out of a hat.
Sharif and members of his family have denied any wrongdoing, and supporters claim the charges against them are politically motivated.
In October, Nawaz approached the high court to annul the verdict against her, claiming the entire proceedings in the reference were a “classic example of outright violations of law and political engineering hitherto unheard of in the history of Pakistan”.
