ISLAMABAD: Suleman Shehbaz, one of the two sons of the prime minister, approached the Islamabad High Court (IHC) to request protective bail in a host of graft and money laundering cases against him, to be able to return without the fear of arrest.
Shehbaz was declared proclaimed offender by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) in 2019 after he refused to appear before the dirty money watchdog in an Rs16 billion money laundering case involving members of his family despite repeated summons, and issued a non-bailable arrest warrant against him.
Following his designation as an offender, the watchdog agency made repeated attempts to bring Shehbaz back but remained unsuccessful for one reason or the other.
The reference mainly accused Shehbaz 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.
