FAZAL SHER

ISLAMABAD: Accountability Court Tuesday reserved its judgment on the petition of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, seeking the court to club three corruption references filed against him by National Accountability Bureau (NAB) and hold a single trial.

Accountability Court did not hear the main case against the Sharif family and heard the plea filed by the former prime minister, which had earlier been rejected by the same court. Earlier, Islamabad High Court (IHC) ordered the accountability court re-hear Sharif’s plea seeking to club the references.

Unlike previous hearings, Nawaz Sharif, his daughter Maryam Nawaz and son-in-law Captain Muhammad Safdar (retd) reached the court in the same car amid tight security arrangements. In the courtroom, Sharif and his daughter sat in the front row while Safdar sat in the row behind them.

The court after hearing the argument of Sharif’s counsel Khawaja Harris and NAB prosecutor reserved the judgment till Nov 8 (today).

Sharif’s counsel while arguing before the court read out the charge-sheet of three corruption cases. He further said that the allegations leveled in three references against the Sharifs regarding assets beyond known sources of income are common.

Harris said that nine and 13 witnesses have been named in the Flagship Investment Ltd reference and Al-Azizia Steel Mills reference, respectively. Six witnesses are identical in both references and three are common with those of Avenfield flats reference, he argued.

He further said if the same witness is allowed to testify in three references, he or she will gain time to prepare as he/she would know what questions the defence counsel is likely to ask and he/she might alter his/her statement accordingly.

He pleaded that three references could remain but a single trial should be conducted against the accused. If they are found guilty after trial, one sentence should be announced, he further said.

Harris said the Accountability Court has the authority to club references. He also said that the National Accountability Ordinance’s sections 19-A, Section 12 and Section 17-D are applicable in this case.

He said according to section 17-D: “Notwithstanding anything in section 234 of the Code, a person accused of more offences than one of the same kind committed during the space of any number of years, from the first to the last of such offences, may be charged with and tried at one trial for any number of such offences.”

He said in all the three references, neither allegations nor facts were mentioned.

He further said that the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) which had investigated the Panama Papers case in its report stated that the London flats were owned by the Sharif family but it did not directly name any individual. The references state that Sharif’s sons, Hassan and Hussain, had no sources of income until 2001, but they are silent on who is the real owner of the London properties, he said.

Harris contended that multiple trials conducted on same charges would be against the spirit of a fair trial. The Sharif’s counsel while giving references of past cases said the court had merged as many as 49 references in the NATO containers case.

Harris pleaded that the nature of all references as well as the defence and prosecution of all the references is the same and, therefore, they should be clubbed together and heard as a single case.

The court after hearing the arguments of Harris went on a 30-minute recess and allowed the accused to leave the courtroom.

As the hearing resumed after the break, NAB Deputy Prosecutor General Sardar Muzaffar Abbasi while opposing Sharif’s plea said that Islamabad High Court (IHC) has asked the accountability court to examine the matter in the light of Section 17-D of the NAB Ordinance.

He said that section 17-D does not apply over more than one accused. “The court would have to examine whether Section 17 is applicable or not in this case,” he said, adding that Section 17-D is related to one person and, therefore, the same section does not apply in this case.

Abbasi said that separate crimes have been committed in the London flats reference. He said that offences, the accused and transactions are not same; therefore, the court should reject the application.

The same matter of the Sharifs is also pending before the Supreme Court, he said, adding that there are different kinds of allegations against the accused in three references and references are not against a single person.

Another NAB Prosecutor Wasiq Malik argued before the court that every reference has its own facts. He said the primary benamidar in the Flagship Investment Ltd reference is Hassan Nawaz while in the Al-Azizia Steel Mills reference it is Hussain Nawaz. The references were segregated because of different crimes and transactions but the primary accused is common in all three references, he said.

Malik said that every accused has a separate role in every reference. “Some witnesses are same in three reference but they have to provide different documents and information,” he said, adding that the references could not be clubbed on the application of a single accused when two accused Hassan and Hussain Nawaz have yet not joined the proceedings of the case.

Harris in his rebuttal said that different court verdicts have been placed before the court and in the review petition they also adopted the same stance.

The court after hearing the arguments of both NAB prosecutor and Sharif’s counsel reserved its judgment till November 8.

Harris also filed another application of Maryam and Safdar in the court, seeking a change in their indictment on grounds that their charge-sheet mentions submission of a “false” document wherein a Calibri font was used.

The application pleads that the document cannot be considered false as the Supreme Court, in the Panama Papers case judgment, had directed the lower court to first establish whether false documents were submitted or not and then take appropriate action. The court will take up the fresh plea today (Wednesday).