{"id":15698,"date":"2018-09-20T05:22:13","date_gmt":"2018-09-20T05:22:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=15698"},"modified":"2018-09-20T05:22:13","modified_gmt":"2018-09-20T05:22:13","slug":"pakistan-court-releases-ex-pm-nawaz-sharif-and-daughter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=15698","title":{"rendered":"Pakistan court releases ex-PM Nawaz Sharif and daughter"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Islamabad, Pakistan <\/strong> – Former prime minister Nawaz Sharif<\/a> and two family members were released from prison on Wednesday after being found guilty of corruption earlier this year.<\/p>\n

Sharif, his daughter Maryam, and 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

After his release, Sharif flew to his family home in Lahore and was greeted by jubilant supporters at the airport.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Earlier on Wednesday, Islamabad High Court judge Athar Minallah ruled 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>\u00a0after the Supreme Court in April ruled he had lied on a parliamentary wealth declaration and the disqualification from that crime would last for an indefinite period.<\/p>\n

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A look at Nawaz Sharif’s political career<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\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

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 – Former prime minister Nawaz Sharif and two family members were released from prison on Wednesday after being found guilty of corruption earlier this year. Sharif, his daughter Maryam, and son-in-law Muhammad Safdar were convicted in July by an anti-corruption court of not being able to prove the source of assets used to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":15699,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15698","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\/15698","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=15698"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15698\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/15699"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}