ISLAMABAD - The Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Tuesday decided to club together pleas filed by the Sharif family against their conviction in the Avenfield reference with the transfer petitions of Al-Azizia and Flagship references.
A two-judge bench comprising Justice Aamer Farooq and Justice Miangul Hassan Aurangzeb is hearing the case. Justice Farooq suggested clubbing the pleas to transfer Al-Azizia and Flagship references out of Accountability Judge Muhammad Bashir's court.
On July 6, an accountability court had sentenced Nawaz to a total of 11 years in prison and slapped a £8 million fine (Rs1.3 billion) in the corruption reference, while his daughter Maryam was sentenced to eight years with a £2 million fine (Rs335 million). Nawaz's son-in-law Capt (r) Safdar was also given a one-year sentence without any fine.
The Sharifs had challenged their convictions in the IHC, highlighting the legal flaws in the Avenfield judgement and asking for the accountability court's verdict to be declared null and void and the three convicts to be released on bail.
An additional appeal was also filed requesting the court to transfer the Al-Azizia and Flagship Investment references against Nawaz from the court of Accountability Judge-I Mohammad Bashir to another accountability court.
The appeals state that the Panamagate Joint Investigation Team (JIT) head and prosecution's star witness Wajid Zia himself accepted that a response to the mutual legal assistance (MLA) request was not received. It further says that levelling allegations without receiving a response to the MLA was mala fide.
Legal counsels of the convicts have contended that the prosecution’s witness Robert Radley not only stated that Calibri font was available for testing purposes, he admitted to having downloaded and used the Calibri font which was available as pre-release of Windows Vista known as BETA-1 since the year 2005 while simultaneously admitting that he was neither a computer expert nor an IT expert or a computer geek.
On July 6, after four extensions in the original six-month deadline to conclude all three cases, the court announced its verdict in the Avenfield reference. Nawaz and his sons, Hussain and Hasan, are accused in all three references whereas Maryam and Safdar were accused in the Avenfield reference only.
The two brothers, based abroad, have been absconding since the proceedings began last year and were declared proclaimed offenders by the court. On July 10, the Supreme Court granted another six-week extension for Accountability Court-I Judge Mohammad Bashir to conclude the remaining corruption references against Nawaz and former finance minister Ishaq Dar.
