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ISLAMABAD: The Islamabad high court acquitted on Wednesday Pakistan’s former PM Nawaz Sharif in the Avenfield corruption case pertaining to the purchase of four luxury apartments in London, overturning the 10-year jail sentence handed to him by an accountability court.
Sharif’s acquittal by the two-judge bench led by Chief Justice Aamer Farooq follows his daughter Maryam Nawaz and son-in-law Safdar Awan being let off in the same case.
The Avenfield case is one of three linked to the 2016 Panama Papers scandal.
A court had declared Sharif an absconder in the case in December 2020, when he was in exile in London. Following his return from the UK last month, the former PM filed a plea in the high court, seeking the restoration of his appeal against his conviction. The court acceded to the plea last month.
The high court also disposed of an appeal against Sharif’s acquittal in the Flagship graft case after the country’s anti-corruption watchdog, the National Accountability Bureau, withdrew its plea.
Sharif had been acquitted in the Flagship case by an anti-corruption court in December 2018. The court, however, convicted him the same day in a third scam – the Al Azizia case – and sentenced him to seven years in jail.
Sharif’s appeal against his conviction in the Al Azizia case is pending before the high court. He served as the country’s PM for three terms – 1990–1992, 1997–1999, and 2013–2017.
In 1992, ex-president Ghulam Ishaq Khan dissolved Sharif’s first government. In 1999, the late Gen Pervez Musharraf evicted him in a military coup. His last tenure came to an end in 2017 following investigations against him in the Panama Papers scandal.
Under the last government, headed by Sharif’s younger brother Shehbaz Sharif, the outgoing parliament passed a controversial law to limit the lifetime disqualification of lawmakers to five years, clearing his path to the ballot scheduled for February 8 next year.
Sharif’s acquittal by the two-judge bench led by Chief Justice Aamer Farooq follows his daughter Maryam Nawaz and son-in-law Safdar Awan being let off in the same case.
The Avenfield case is one of three linked to the 2016 Panama Papers scandal.
A court had declared Sharif an absconder in the case in December 2020, when he was in exile in London. Following his return from the UK last month, the former PM filed a plea in the high court, seeking the restoration of his appeal against his conviction. The court acceded to the plea last month.
The high court also disposed of an appeal against Sharif’s acquittal in the Flagship graft case after the country’s anti-corruption watchdog, the National Accountability Bureau, withdrew its plea.
Sharif had been acquitted in the Flagship case by an anti-corruption court in December 2018. The court, however, convicted him the same day in a third scam – the Al Azizia case – and sentenced him to seven years in jail.
Sharif’s appeal against his conviction in the Al Azizia case is pending before the high court. He served as the country’s PM for three terms – 1990–1992, 1997–1999, and 2013–2017.
In 1992, ex-president Ghulam Ishaq Khan dissolved Sharif’s first government. In 1999, the late Gen Pervez Musharraf evicted him in a military coup. His last tenure came to an end in 2017 following investigations against him in the Panama Papers scandal.
Under the last government, headed by Sharif’s younger brother Shehbaz Sharif, the outgoing parliament passed a controversial law to limit the lifetime disqualification of lawmakers to five years, clearing his path to the ballot scheduled for February 8 next year.
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