LAHORE: Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) senior leader Khawaja Asif has been released from jail custody, a day after Lahore High Court (LHC) approved his bail in an asset-beyond means case.
According to details, the PML-N stalwart is currently under treatment at the Jinnah Hospital Lahore. Seeing the release orders, the jail police left the hospital.
A day earlier, the LHC granted bail to Khawaja Asif, who is one of the last PML-N leaders to be released after facing months-long incarceration. A LHC division bench granted bail to Asif, who was arrested by a NAB team on December 29, 2021 from outside a building in Lahore.
NAB claimed that total assets held by Asif swelled from Rs5.1 million in 1991, when he was elected as a senator, to Rs221 million in 2018, and he needed to justify his ballooning income by providing the source of earning. The former foreign minister had filed a bail application in March.
The LHC bench — comprising Justice Aalia Neelum and Justice Syed Shahbaz Ali Rizvi — issued the order after hearing arguments from both sides. PML-N President Shehbaz Sharif expressed joy over Asif’s release and said he is thankful that Asif’s “unjust” incarceration has come to an end.
“Congratulations to Khawaja Asif on getting bail from the court order. With the release of Khawaja Asif on bail, the politics of revenge in the name of accountability has been exposed once again today,” Shehbaz Sharif said in a statement.
NAB, on June 22, forwarded the reference against Khawaja Asif to NAB Chairman Justice (retd) Javed Iqbal for final approval. The reference said Asif had bought several properties in the name of his family members and also made several investments.
A referee bench of the LHC on April 22 also granted post-arrest bail to PML-N President Shehbaz Sharif after he spent nearly seven months in jail in connection with NAB’s probe into a money laundering case. The PML-N president was arrested by NAB in September 2020 after the LHC rejected his bail plea.
