Nawaz appears in court for Al-Azizia, Flagship hearing

ISLAMABAD: An accountability court on Monday adjourned the hearing of Al-Azizia and Flagship Investment references against former prime minister Nawaz Sharif and members of his family.

Accountability Court-II Judge Arshad Malik adjourned the hearing till 12:30 pm on Tuesday (tomorrow).

The former premier was produced before the court in the federal capital from Adiala jail for the hearing of the two cases against him.

At the outset of the hearing, a junior associate of Khawaja Haris, the former premier’s counsel, told the judge that Mr Haris was busy before a bench of the IHC which is scheduled to take up a petition filed by Sharif.

The court, therefore, called for a break till 11:30am but the lawyer didn’t turn up until 12:30 pm, forcing it to adjourn the hearing till tomorrow.

It is pertinent to mention here that the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has approached the Supreme Court, challenging the Islamabad High Court’s (IHC) order of transferring Al-Azizia and Flagship Investment references against Sharif and his family to another accountability court.

On August 7, a two-judge bench of the IHC, comprising Justice Aamer Farooq and Justice Miangul Hassan Aurangzeb, ordered transfer of the pending cases against the Sharif family from the court of Accountability Judge-I Mohammad Bashir to Accountability Court-II.

Last week, the Supreme Court extended the deadline for six more weeks to the accountability court to conclude the pending graft cases against the members of Sharif family.

Accountability court II Judge Arshad Malik had approached the apex court for an extension in the deadline to wrap up the Flagship and Al-Azizia references against Nawaz Sharif and the members of his family.