{"id":73037,"date":"2024-03-19T16:57:05","date_gmt":"2024-03-19T16:57:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/nawazs-sons-acquitted-in-all-three-panama-papers-references\/"},"modified":"2024-03-19T16:57:05","modified_gmt":"2024-03-19T16:57:05","slug":"nawazs-sons-acquitted-in-all-three-panama-papers-references","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/nawazs-sons-acquitted-in-all-three-panama-papers-references\/","title":{"rendered":"Nawaz\u2019s sons acquitted in all three Panama Papers references"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div dir=\"auto\">\n<p>An Islamabad accountability court on Tuesday acquitted former prime minister Nawaz Sharif\u2019s sons \u2014 Hussain Nawaz and Hassan Nawaz \u2014 in three corruption references related to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dawn.com\/news\/1249888\">Panama Papers<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>In 2018, Nawaz\u2019s sons were declared proclaimed offenders after they failed to join the investigation in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dawn.com\/news\/1418326\">Avenfield Apartment<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dawn.com\/news\/1452815\">Al-Azizia<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dawn.com\/news\/1452815#:~:text=Steel%20Mills%20and-,Flagship%20Investments,-Accountability%20Judge%20Mohammad\">Flagship Investment<\/a> references filed by the National Account\u00adability Bureau (NAB).<\/p>\n<p>Earlier this month, Hussain and Hassan, through their counsel Qazi Misbahul Hassan, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dawn.com\/news\/1819759\/nawazs-sons-to-surrender-in-three-corruption-cases\">decided to surrender<\/a> before the court to face the trial proceedings and sought suspension of the warrants issued against them.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"media  sm:w-1\/2  w-full  media--right  media--embed  media--uneven\">\n<p>    <iframe class=\"nk-iframe\" onload=\"setInterval(()=&gt;{try{this.style.height=this.contentWindow.document.body.scrollHeight+'px';}catch{}}, 100)\" width=\"100%\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" style=\"height:400px;position:relative\" src=\"https:\/\/www.dawn.com\/news\/card\/1252263\" sandbox=\"allow-same-origin allow-scripts allow-popups allow-modals allow-forms\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<p>After an accountability court <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dawn.com\/news\/1819832\">suspended<\/a> their warrants till March 14, both <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dawn.com\/news\/1821092\">returned<\/a> to Pakistan on March 12, ending their six-year-long self-imposed exile in London.<\/p>\n<p>Last week, the court <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dawn.com\/news\/1821523\">reopened<\/a> the references against Hussain and Hassan after suspending their perpetual arrest warrants and granting them bail against surety bonds of Rs50,000 each.<\/p>\n<p>Accountability judge Nasir Javed Rana announced the verdict today that was reserved earlier in the day, accepting the acquittal pleas.<\/p>\n<p>Qazi Misbah appeared as the counsel for Hussain and Hassan while their pleader Rana Mohammad Irfan was also present. The NAB, represented by its prosecutor Azhar Maqbool, did not oppose the acquittal pleas.<\/p>\n<p>Hussain and Hassan Nawaz left the country in 2018 after they were na\u00adm\u00aded in the corruption cases. They were declared proclaimed offenders for not joining the investigat\u00adion and court proceedings, and subsequently, their arr\u00adest warrants were issued.<\/p>\n<p>The PML-N had kept their return a \u201clow-key\u201d affair as the media was not informed about it. Both had landed at the Lahore airport from London and were escorted to their Jati Umra residence under tight security of the Punjab police.<\/p>\n<h2><a id=\"the-hearing\" href=\"#the-hearing\" class=\"heading-permalink\" aria-hidden=\"true\" title=\"Permalink\"\/>The hearing<\/h2>\n<p>At the outset of the hearing, the court sought the NAB\u2019s report on the pleas, to which the bureau\u2019s prosecutor replied that a previous Supreme Court verdict was not an obstacle to the acquittals.<\/p>\n<p>Judge Rana then asked Maqbool to record his statement. The prosecutor informed the court that the cases did not fall under the amendments to the NAB laws, adding that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dawn.com\/news\/1797271\">Nawaz<\/a>, Punjab Chief Minister <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dawn.com\/news\/1712573\">Maryam Nawaz<\/a> and her husband Captain (rtd) Safdar had already been acquitted in the cases against them.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHassan and Hussain are accused of conspiracy and abetment while the main accused have been acquitted,\u201d the lawyer argued.<\/p>\n<p>Noting that the accountability bureau had not filed an appeal against Maryam\u2019s acquittal, the lawyer said it was based on the \u201csame documents\u201d on which her father was freed of the charges.<\/p>\n<p>Recalling the Islamabad High Court\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dawn.com\/news\/1674454\">verdicts<\/a>, Misbah contended that the NAB could not present any evidence before the court against the newly elected Punjab CM.<\/p>\n<p>The counsel further said that the anti-corruption watchdog had not challenged the December 2023 verdicts where Nawaz\u2019s acquittal pleas were accepted.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe NAB did not present further evidence before the court based on which a case against Hassan and Hussain Nawaz can be proceeded. They cannot be sentenced on the evidence currently present,\u201d Misbah said.<\/p>\n<p>The counsel termed the case proceedings a \u201cwaste of the court\u2019s time\u201d. He reiterated that as charges against the main accused had been dismissed, a case on the charge of providing assistance could not be upheld.<\/p>\n<p>Misbah further noted that the NAB had withdrawn its appeal against Nawaz\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dawn.com\/news\/1454651\">acquittal<\/a> in the Flagship Investment reference.<\/p>\n<p>After both sides presented their stances, the court reserved its verdict on Hassan and Hussain\u2019s pleas seeking acquittal in the three references.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An Islamabad accountability court on Tuesday acquitted former prime minister Nawaz Sharif\u2019s sons \u2014 Hussain Nawaz and Hassan Nawaz \u2014 in three corruption references related to the Panama Papers. In 2018, Nawaz\u2019s sons were declared proclaimed offenders after they failed to join the investigation in Avenfield Apartment, Al-Azizia and Flagship Investment references filed by the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":73038,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/i.dawn.com\/large\/2024\/03\/19160150db6c9ff.png?r=160656","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[192],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-73037","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-islamabad-news"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73037","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73037"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73037\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/73038"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}