ISLAMABAD: A Pakistani high court on Tuesday extended former prime minister Nawaz Sharif’s bail in two separate corruption cases till October 26, after the country’s anti-corruption watchdog contended that it had no objection to granting bail to the accused.
Sharif was disqualified by the Supreme Court over allegations regarding his personal wealth. In 2018, he was sentenced to 10 years in prison in a corruption case involving purchases of luxury apartments in London. The same year, he got seven-year jail in another case involving his failure to prove the source of funds to set up a steel mill.
In November 2019, the three-time former premier traveled to London for medical treatment after the Lahore High Court granted him bail for eight weeks, but he stayed abroad for four years in self-exile only to return home last week.
The ex-premier secured a protective bail from the Islamabad High Court (IHC) ahead of his return to the country, which expired on Tuesday. He appeared before the IHC, seeking restoration of his appeals against the conviction.
A two-member bench led by IHC Chief Justice Amir Farooq heard the ex-premier’s appeals and extended his bail on the insistence of his lawyer.
“This is a case of first impression,” Sharif’s counsel, Azam Nazir Tarar, contended before the court. “You may extend our protective bail for some days.”
Tarar argued that Sharif had traveled abroad with the permission of the Lahore High Court and he had been regularly submitting his medical reports in the court.
“He did not remain absent [from the hearings] intentionally,” he contended.
A prosecutor for the country’s anti-corruption watchdog, the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), informed the court they did not intend to arrest the ex-premier for now and neither had any objection to an extension in his bail.
At this, the court extended Sharif’s protective bail till October 26.
Earlier in the day, Sharif surrendered himself before an accountability court in Islamabad, seeking revocation of his 2020 arrest warrants in a separate case relating to luxury vehicles he had retained from the state repository during his tenures in office, in violation of the rules.
In September 2020, the accountability court in Islamabad issued non-bailable arrest warrants for the former premier and later initiated the process to confiscate his properties over his continued absence from court hearings.
“As he [Nawaz Sharif] has surrendered before the court, therefore his arrest warrants should be canceled,” a NAB prosecutor said at the hearing. “The trial in the case can move forward if his warrants are revoked.”
Sharif appeared in the courtroom along with his legal team and senior party leaders, including his younger brother and ex-premier Shehbaz Sharif. He was allowed to leave the courtroom shortly after he marked his attendance.
The court later confirmed Sharif’s bail against surety bonds of one million rupees and adjourned the hearing till November 20.
In a separate development, the caretaker Punjab government suspended Sharif’s sentence in one of the corruption references, the Al-Azizia Steel Mills case, through an approval of the provincial cabinet. The Punjab interim information minister confirmed the development, citing “constitutional powers” vested in the provincial government.
“A final decision of the case will be taken by the court,” Information Minister Aamir Mir told reporters in Lahore.
