{"id":15634,"date":"2018-09-19T13:23:08","date_gmt":"2018-09-19T13:23:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=15634"},"modified":"2018-09-19T13:23:08","modified_gmt":"2018-09-19T13:23:08","slug":"pakistan-court-orders-release-of-ex-pm-nawaz-sharif-daughter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=15634","title":{"rendered":"Pakistan court orders release of ex-PM Nawaz Sharif, daughter"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Islamabad, Pakistan <\/strong> – A Pakistani court has suspended the jail sentences given to former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif<\/a> and two family members by an anti-corruption court earlier this year, with the three expected to be released after the payment of a bail bond.<\/p>\n

Sharif, his daughter Maryam and his son-in-law Muhammad Safdar were convicted in July<\/a> by an anti-corruption court of not being able to prove the source of assets used to buy a set of upmarket London flats.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, Islamabad High Court judge Athar Minallah ruled that the National Accountability Bureau, Pakistan’s anti-corruption watchdog, was unable to prove a financial link between the former prime minister and the apartments in question.<\/p>\n

A two-member bench, led by Minallah, suspended the jail sentences while hearing the Sharifs’ appeal against their convictions.<\/p>\n

Their convictions will stand, although their sentences have been suspended.<\/p>\n

Sharif had been sentenced to 10 years in jail and a $10.5m fine, his daughter Maryam to a seven-year jail sentence and a $2.6m fine, and Maryam’s husband Safdar to a year in prison.<\/p>\n

Sharif remains barred from running for public office for life<\/a>, after the Supreme Court in April ruled that he had lied on a parliamentary wealth declaration and that the disqualification from that crime would last for an indefinite period.<\/p>\n

Sharif, his daughter, and his son-in-law will now each have to pay 500,000 Pakistani rupees (roughly $4,000) in separate surety bonds before their release.<\/p>\n

‘No corruption proved’<\/span> <\/span><\/h2>\n

Hamza Shehbaz, Nawaz Sharif’s nephew, said the family was thankful for the ruling.<\/p>\n

“Today is a happy day that our leader will be released from jail. We are thankful to Allah. As I said earlier, this verdict from the anti-corruption court, it was clear that there was no corruption proved against Nawaz Sharif. Hopefully, we will show that there is nothing to this case.”<\/p>\n

“Today’s fundamental news is that the verdict by the anti-corruption court against Nawaz Sharif was very weak, and … hopefully, we will continue our legal battle against all the other cases.”<\/p>\n

A crowd of hundreds of Sharif’s supporters had gathered at the court ahead of the verdict and raised slogans praising him following the announcement of the suspension of the sentence.<\/p>\n

The National Accountability Bureau is expected to appeal the Islamabad High Court’s verdict at the Supreme Court.<\/p>\n

Hearings in two other corruption cases against Sharif and his family are continuing at an anti-corruption court.<\/span><\/p>\n

Wednesday’s decision will come as a blow to Sharif’s bitter political rival Imran Khan, who swept a July general election following Sharif’s conviction and jailing.<\/p>\n

Khan, now prime minister, was in Saudi Arabia on a state visit when the decision was announced.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Islamabad, Pakistan – A Pakistani court has suspended the jail sentences given to former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and two family members by an anti-corruption court earlier this year, with the three expected to be released after the payment of a bail bond. Sharif, his daughter Maryam and his son-in-law Muhammad Safdar were convicted in…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":15635,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15634","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15634","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15634"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15634\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/15635"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}