NAB team to arrest Nawaz, Maryam at Abu Dhabi Airport: reports

ABU DHABI/ISLAMABAD: The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has sent its three-member team to Abu Dhabi to take into custody former prime minister Nawaz Sharif and his daughter Maryam Nawaz as they touch down the airport.

According to reports, the former PM and his daughter will be first shown their arrest warrants before being arrested. The duo will then be moved to Pakistan under NAB team security.

Upon reaching the Lahore Airport, sources said, a 16-member NAB team will then take Nawaz and Maryam into custody before shifting them to Adiala Jail via helicopter.

Former Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sharif and his daughter Maryam Nawaz Sharif are to be arrested at Abu Dhabi airport in United Arab Emirates (UAE) later in the day, according to reports. The two will be kept in Adiala jail in Rawalpindi for a day before being transferred to the Attock Fort prison.

The two bid an emotional farewell to Nawaz’s wife, Begum Kulsoom, who is undergoing treatment for cancer, and Maryam’s children, besides former finance minister Ishaq Dar in London before leaving for Pakistan.

“Told my kids to be brave in the face of oppression. But kids will still be kids. Goodbyes are hard, even for the grownups,” Maryam had tweeted with a picture of her children.

Nawaz Sharif was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment and fined eight million pounds in the Avenfield Reference case by an accountability court, which awarded seven years jail to Maryam besides a fine of two million pounds.

The provincial government in Punjab have mobilised more than 10,000 police officers ahead of their arrival and plan to block roads with shipping containers to shut down Lahore.

Supporters of Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) party said they will march to the airport there, where he is due to land, in defiance of a ban on all public rallies.