Pakistan’s National Accountability Bureau on Friday arrested former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in connection with the Chaudhry Sugar Mills case, Dawn reported. Sharif’s family allegedly laundered money under the guise of sale or purchase of shares of the sugar mill, according to officials.
The bureau reportedly traced a number of telegraphic transfers worth millions of Pakistani rupees by the Sharif family and the end beneficiaries included Maryam Nawaz, who was arrested in August, and other owners of the Chaudhry Sugar Mills. The bureau had also inquired about how and where the shares were divided since the inception of the mill in 1985.
A team of NAB officials first took Sharif, who is currently lodged in Kot Lakhpat Jail in Lahore in connection with the Al Azizia case, into custody and then presented him before an accountability court. The investigating agency asked for a 15-day remand of the former prime minister.
The agency’s prosecutor argued that Sharif had a significant amount of shares in the mills and added that he was also a shareholder in the Shamim Sugar Mills. The agency also submitted that the accounts linked to the sugar mills had received funds from an unidentified foreign company.
However, Sharif’s lawyer refuted the allegations that the former prime minister had ever held the post of director of the mills or been a shareholder. “NAB’s dishonesty in the case is evident and one more case is being formed on a political basis,” Sharif’s lawyer said.
Sharif was arrested after a joint investigation team said that he had not cooperated in the inquiry, according to ARY News.
Along with Maryam Nawaz, PML-N President Shehbaz Sharif, Hamza Shehbaz and Yousaf Abbas are already under investigation in the case. In August, Maryam Nawaz was arrested when she went to visit her father in jail. She had excused herself from appearing before the anti-corruption bureau and gone to meet the former prime minister instead.
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