LONDON: An apparently leaked video showing “critically-ill” deposed prime minister Nawaz Sharif visiting a local industrial unit in a northwestern town of England was “four to five months old”, his son told Geo News.
The video went viral on social media Wednesday, a day after Sharif’s counsel submitted to the Lahore High Court (LHC) a fresh medical report advising the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) supreme leader against travel to Pakistan.
It sparked a debate about Sharif’s health and strengthened the legitimacy of government claims that he’s only faking his illness to escape the trial in corruption cases against him. His detractors also called into question the credibility of the medical reports submitted to the courts since his departure in 2019.
The video, accessed and shared by ARY News and not independently verified by Pakistan Today, showed Sharif, accompanied by his two sons and former finance minister Ishaq Dar, visiting the different sections of the business — a factory — and apparently taking a briefing from the staff.
Speaking on Geo News programme Aaj Shahzaib Khanzada Kay Saath, Hussain Nawaz said: “I and Nawaz Sharif paid a visit to one of our acquaintances’ houses. Subsequently, he took us to see his factory.”
He also sought to clarify that due to coronavirus restrictions, businesses across the UK were understaffed, implying that it, therefore, posed no threat to Sharif’s health.
Visiting a factory is not a sin and Sharif went out [of his home] for just two hours, Nawaz added.
According to ARY News, the business is located in Nelson, a town in the Borough of Pendle in Lancashire, some 245 miles (394 kilometres) away from the former prime minister’s notorious Avenfield House residence in Central London.
The government did not contact the Sharif family in London to inquire about Sharif’s health condition, he claimed.
Nawaz said Sharif was undergoing medical treatment in London which he said will finish only after his doctors will find improvement in his condition.
We won’t be “compromising on Sharif’s health” until the treatment is completed, he declared.
After spending a year in prison, Sharif, 72, secured a conditional one-month bail in November 2019 to travel to London on the pretext of medical treatment but has since refused to return.
His party insists that despite being summoned by the courts, which declared him a proclaimed offender in separate graft trials, the former prime minister will only return after the completion of his medical treatment — the nature of which remains a mystery to date.
In May 2020, at the peak of the first wave of the coronavirus disease, Sharif was spotted sitting at a roadside cafe in London with his granddaughters.
Months earlier to that, in January, a similar picture of him having tea at a London restaurant along with some family members had gone viral, providing a chance to the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf’s (PTI) leadership to pounce on him for, what it called, feigning his ailment.
