Accountability court hears Flagship Reference case against Nawaz

ISLAMABAD: An accountability court today resumed hearing into Flagship Investment Reference against former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, ARY News reported.

At the outset of the hearing, Mr. Sharif’s counsel Khawaja Haris requested the court that he wanted to bring on record a few objections on earlier statement of the prosecution.

Judge Arshad Malik asked the counsel to submit if he had objections in writing. The former PM’s lawyer then got his objections registered, before court continued with the proceedings.

As the hearing went on, investigation officer Muhammad Kamran during his cross-examination asked Mr. Haris to ask questions pertaining to the case. “We implemented court orders of July 28, 2017 in the case.”

He told the court that he had completed his probe in August 2017 in the light of court orders.

NAB prosecutor said questions related to legal matters couldn’t be asked from the investigation officer.

Nawaz Sharif had appeared before the court during last hearing of the case on Nov 7.

The reference has entered in decisive phase after prosecution witness, the Panama JIT Head, Wajid Zia, completed his testimony in the reference. The court has already closed evidence in the Al-Azizia reference and in the current stage former premier will record his statement under Section 342 of the Criminal Procedure Code after which the prosecution as well as the defence counsel will begin their final arguments.

The defence counsel and the prosecutors hope that the proceedings in both Al-Azizia and Flagship Investment references would be wrapped up before the Supreme Court’s deadline of Nov 17.

The National Accountability Bureau had filed three references on Sept 8, 2017 against Mr Sharif and his family, and another reference against former finance minister Ishaq Dar. The three references against the Sharif family are related to the Flagship Investment Ltd, the Avenfield (London) properties and Al-Azizia Company and Hill Metal Establishment.

On July 28, the Supreme Court had disqualified Mr Sharif from holding the office of prime minister and also directed NAB to file four references against the Sharif family and Mr Dar in a trial court within six weeks.