Shahbaz seeks medical board

LAHORE: Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) president Shahbaz Sharif on Monday requested the accountability court to form a medical board for him.

According to details, Sharif and his son Punjab Assembly Opposition Leader Hamza Shahbaz were produced before the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) court in the money laundering case against the members of the Sharif family.

During the hearing, the court expressed resentment over the absence of Sharif’s lawyer.

Earlier, NAB Lahore wing’s director general Saleem Shahzad had submitted a report in the court through an investigation officer on freezing the properties of Sharif’s wife Nusrat Shahbaz, daughter Rabia Imran and others.

Sharif told that there was no doctor dealing with cancer patients present in the government panel, therefore, he requested the court to include his personal doctor on the board.

The accountability court had declared Shehbaz Sharif’s wife Nusrat Shahbaz as a proclaimed offender.

Nusrat Shahbaz was later declared absconder over her prolonged absence in case hearings.

In November last, Sharif and Hamza were indicted in the reference by the accountability court.

All the accused in the case pleaded not guilty. Sharif, while rejecting allegations of the anti-graft watchdog, said that he was being politically victimised.

The reference mainly accused Shahbaz 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 family members and benamidars of the Shahbaz 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 personal bank accounts of Hamza and Suleman.

The reference further said the family of Shahbaz 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 National Accountability Ordinance, 1999, and money laundering as delineated in the Anti-Money Laundering Act, 2010. It asked the trial court to try the suspects and punish them under the law.

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