Four prosecution witnesses testify against Sharif family in NAB references
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ISLAMABAD: An Accountability Court (AC) of Islamabad Wednesday testify four prosecution witnesses in three referencesagainst Sharif family members and also sought reply from NationalAccountability Bureau (NAB) on Nawaz Sharif’s plea seeking changing in hisexemption from appearance period to inquire after the health of Kulsoom Nawaz in London.
The court also summoned two more NAB witnesses to testify in Flagship Investment and AvenfieldLondon flats references on November 28.
The AC Judge Muhammad Bashir took up three references against Sharif family members forhearing filed by NAB in compliance of Supreme Court orders in Panama paperscase.
The former prime minister Muhammad Nawaz Sharif and his daughter, Maryam Nawaz, appeared beforethe court along with their legal teams despite of having exemption from appearance, amid foolproof security arrangements in place.
The NAB prosecution team and its four witnesses were also in attendance in the court to record theirstatements.
During hearing, Maryam Nawaz submitted an application to the court to alter her exemptionperiod. She requested the court to allow her one month exemption from court appearance now from December 5, 2017 to January 5, 2018.
Similarly, the former prime minister also submitted the request with the court to sought oneweek exemption from appearance from December 5, to 12 instead of November 22 to28th of this month.
The court sought reply from NAB on former prime minister and his daughter’s plea seeking alterin their exemption from appearance period.
Meanwhile, the four witnesses including Mazhar Raza Bangash, Abdul Rasheed,--who belong to aBritish law firm--and Chief Finance Officer of Chaudhry Sugar Mills Shehbaz Haider recorded their statements before accountability court judge and were cross-examined by the defense counsel.
Nawaz Sharif’s counsel, Khwaja Harris, completed the cross-examination with NAB's witness,Mohammad Rasheed. NAB's witness, Mazhar Raza Bangash, who recorded his statementin the Avenfield reference, was cross-examined by Harris and Amjad Pervez, thecounsel of Maryam and Safdar.
In his statement, Abdul Rasheed said he received NABletter NAB Lahore on September 5 and appeared before the bureau and handed overthe required documents to the investigating officer.
NAB prosecutor Afzal Qureshi exchanged hot words with thecounsel as the former accused the latter of trying to confuse the witness.
The witness stated that he had no personal connectionwith the documents he had submitted.
The second witness Mazhar Bangash said that he appearedbefore NAB Lahore on August 30 and submitted the requisite documents to theinvestigating officer. The documents submitted to NAB had been provided by hiscompany but he could not comment or give his opinion on the document, he said.
Tayyab, an employee of a private bank, said the documentspertaining to Nawaz Sharif's five bank accounts were prepared by him andcarried his signatures. The three of those accounts were in foreign currencies.
Khwaja Harris objected that the documents presented byTayyab had not been provided to him prior to the witness' statement, at whichthe court ordered to provide him the copies of documents.
The court alsosummoned again the fourth prosecution witness Malik Tayyab to complete cross-examinationin Azizia Steel Mills reference on November 27.
The court alsosummoned two more NAB witnesses including Umer Daraz and Mukhtar in FlagshipInvestment and Avenfield property references to testify on November 28.
It may bementioned here that Nawaz Sharif and his family are facing three referencesfiled by the (NAB) in light of the Supreme Court's July 28 judgment in thePanama Papers case.
Nawaz and his twosons, Hussain and Hasan, are nominated in all three references whereas Maryamand her husband MNA Capt (retd) Safdar are only accused in one related toAvenfield property.
