Nawaz to record his statement in Flagship Investment case tomorrow

ISLAMABAD: The lawyer of former prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, on Tuesday requested a day-long period from an accountability court before his client may record his statement in the Flagship Investment Reference, ARY News reported.

The accountability court resumed hearing of the case today with Judge Arshad Malik in the chair.

Khawaja Haris, lawyer of Mr. Sharif, told the court that he had been going through several documents for the case before the former PM record his statement. I request the court to give a day extension in recording statement of Mr. Sharif, he added.

We will record his statement tomorrow, the judge responded.

At the outset of the hearing on Monday, 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.

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.