Nawaz Sharif to challenge IHC verdict on his bail petition

ISLAMABAD: Former prime minister Nawaz Sharif has decided to challenge the Islamabad High Court’s (IHC) verdict on his petition seeking bail on medical grounds, sources said.

The high court on Feb 25 had rejected Sharif’s plea seeking suspension of sentence in Al-Azizia reference on medical grounds.

ARY News has received a copy of the original document of the decision collected by the former premier’s legal team from the high court.

Nawaz Sharif’s counsel Khawaja Haris will submit a petition in Supreme Court within two to three days to challenge the IHC decision, sources said.

The text of the plea says the petitioner has hope of justice from the Supreme Court.

The petition seeks the apex court to declare the Islamabad High Court’s decision as void.

A division bench of the IHC comprising Justice Amir Farooq and Justice Mohsin Akhtar Kiyani, dismissed the plea of the former premier, stating that the bail can not be granted on medical basis.

“Nawaz Shairf is not suffering from any disease which can not be treated in Pakistan,” the bench observed.

The security was beefed up in and around the high court on Monday with the deployment of additional contingents in the area.

The former premier is currently imprisoned at Kot Lakhpat jail. He was earlier admitted at hospital on February 15 owing to his illness.

Sharif had first filed an appeal with the IHC challenging his conviction in the case. Later, he submitted a petition in the court seeking bail as an interim relief. The former PM’s lawyer sought bail of his client with a request to the court to separately hear the bail plea.

An accountability court in Islamabad had pronounced a seven-year jail term to the former premier and ordered him to pay $25million and Rs1.5 billion as fine in Al-Azizia reference on December 24.