Pakistan
Money laundering case: Court grants interim bail to PM, CM
Court grants interim bail to Shehbaz Sharif and Hamza Shahbaz.
Lahore: The special court on Saturday granted interim bails to Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and his son, Punjab Chief Minister Hamza Shahbaz in an Rs16 billion money laundering case.
According to details, the special court ordered the father, son duo to submit the surety bond worth Rs1 million each.
The money laundering case was being heard in the Special Central Court Lahore.
The Premier and Punjab Chief Minister applied for an extension in the bail plea and the judge of the reserved the verdict after arguments from the prosecutor and the suspects concluded.
During the hearing, Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif came to the rostrum and stated that serious charges have been leveled against him and he is facing dozens of cases while the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) delayed the challan to find a way to detain him.
The court, however, inquired whether the FIA need the arrest of the accused, to which the prosecutor said that the further role of the accused has yet to be proved.
Counsel of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leaders opposed FIA plea and argued the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) led government had filed the case with mala fide intent to target political opponents.
The special court resumed its hearing of the multi-billion rupee money laundering case against Shehbaz Sharif, his son Hamza Shahbaz and others today.
It is pertinent to mention here that the co-accused of a multi-billion money laundering case Malik Maqsood Chaprasi passed away on Thursday.
In December last year, the FIA had submitted a challan against the two PML-N leaders before the court for their alleged involvement in laundering an amount of Rs16 billion in the sugar scam case. The investigation team has “detected 28 Benami [untitled] accounts of the Shehbaz family through which money laundering of Rs16.3bn was committed during 2008 to 2018”. It examined the money trail of 17,000 credit transactions.