Islamabad High Court on Thursday reserved its verdict on the appeals of Muslim League (N) leader Maryam Nawaz and her husband Captain retired Muhammad Safdar in the Avenfield apartment reference.
A two-member bench consisting of Justice Amir Farooq and Justice Mohsin Akhtar Kayani held a hearing today during which the court heard the arguments of the parties.
The court said that the verdict will be issued in 10 to 15 minutes.
On 6 July, a few weeks before the 2018 elections, an accountability judge in Islamabad, working under the supervision of a Supreme Court judge, found the Sharif family guilty in the Avenfield apartment reference.
Former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was sentenced to 10 years in prison for having assets in excess of his income and one year in prison for not cooperating with the National Accountability Bureau (NAB). Meanwhile, Maryam was sentenced to 7 years for being “instrumental in concealing her father’s assets” and one year for non-cooperation with the Bureau.
Safdar was sentenced to one year imprisonment for not cooperating with NAB and helping Nawaz and Maryam.
The Sharif family filed appeals against their conviction before the IHC in the second week of August 2018. The court suspended their sentences on September 18 of the same year and released them on bail.
In October last year, Maryam filed a fresh application to the IHC to set aside the verdict, with “very relevant, plain and clear facts”.
In her plea, Maryam said the entire proceedings that led to her conviction was “a prime example of flagrant violations of law and political engineering unheard of in the history of Pakistan”.
He also cited former IHC judge Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui’s speech at the District Bar Association Rawalpindi on July 21, 2018, in which he claimed that the country’s top intelligence agency was involved in manipulating judicial proceedings. Is.
Quoting an excerpt from former judge Siddiqui’s speech, the petition read, “The ISI officials had approached the Chief Justice and asked him to ensure that Nawaz and his daughter are excluded from the elections. No prior bail should be granted.”
