LAHORE: A court on Friday delayed the indictment of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) President Shehbaz Sharif and other accused in the multi-billion money laundering case till February 28.
Special court Judge Ijazul Ahsan Awan presided over the hearing of a case against Shehbaz Sharif and others for their alleged involvement in laundering around Rs16 billion in the Ramzan sugar mills scam case.
During the hearing, the counsel representing the PML-N leader said the copies of the challan shared by the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) were not legible due to their poor print quality.
He added that bank officials did not share the copies of 164 statements with the team. The court ordered the FIA to share new copies with Shehbaz’s legal team and adjourned the hearing till February 28.
After the hearing, Shehbaz Sharif while talking to media outside the court said that the National Assembly session was postponed because of the date of his indictment given by the court last week.
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Shehbaz said the FIA wanted the court to change the indictment date and the government wanted to frame the charges against him today. “They wanted to change the date so I could not skip the hearing on account of the NA session,” he added.
Last week, a special court in Lahore had decided to indict the PML-N president, his sons Hamza and Suleman and others on February 18 (today) for their alleged involvement in laundering around Rs16 billion in the sugar scam case.
The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) in the challan submitted before the court had declared Shehbaz Sharif and his son Hamza Shehbaz as prime accused and named 14 other accused in the case.
The FIA claimed that the father-son duo failed to provide a money trail of Rs16bn and declared them as the principal accused in the challan submitted before a banking court.
As per the challan, the FIA declared Suleman Shehbaz as proclaimed offender in this case along with two other accused including Malik Maqsood Ahmad and Sayed Tahir Naqvi. As many as 100 prosecution witnesses will record their testimony in this case as prescribed in the challan.
