ISLAMABAD: Former prime minister Nawaz Sharif Wednesday said that the testimony of prosecution’s ‘star witness’ Wajid Zia had ‘washed away’ all the allegations against him and his family.
During cross-examination in the Avenfield reference, Wajid Zia, who headed the joint investigation team (JIT) formed by the Supreme Court in Panama Papers case, told the accountability court that there was no document to prove that ousted prime minister Nawaz Sharif was the owner or had remained owner of the Avenfield apartments at any point in time.
While speaking to media after the hearing, Nawaz remarked that the “ongoing drama will not last long as the case is a fraud … many forces are part of this fraud against me and my family.” “We cannot be punished in this case. Those who registered the case against us should feel embarrassed now,” Nawaz said, taunting that if his political enemies want to punish him then they should forge cases against him for corruption in rental power projects, Hajj scandal or EOBI where billions of rupees were embezzled.
The former prime minister said that he appears before the court as he respects the law. “Why would I come for the case hearing? My wife is under treatment [in London],” he remarked, adding that he was not being allowed to leave the country to see her ailing wife.
Repeatedly asked about the surprise meeting between Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi and Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar a day earlier, Nawaz avoided the question and instead chose to criticize the top judge.”I cannot say for sure but I think that we are the [real] target” of the Supreme Court’s scrutiny of medical colleges and visits to hospitals, he said, explaining that this was because his family runs the Sharif Medical City which is a charitable institution. He added that it appeared that the purpose of the scrutiny was to implicate his family but it could not be fulfilled as nothing incriminating was present against them.
Sharif claimed that first the role of the parliament slipped into the ‘hands of others’, referring to his removal as the PML-N president, and now the role of the executive has also been “taken in control by the CJP because of his suomotu actions.””Feel free to take action [on public issues] but also do something about 1.8 million cases pending in different courts,” Nawaz said.
Published in Daily Times, March 29th 2018.
