ISLAMABAD: The Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Thursday acquitted Maryam Nawaz, the daughter of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, and her husband Muhammad Safdar Awan in a case popularly known as the Avenfield Reference that relates to the purchase of a number of upscale properties in London.
The Sharifs were accused of embezzling public funds to offshore accounts that were used to purchase four high valued Avenfield properties, an apartment block on Park Lane in central London. The graft case also implicated Sharif’s sons, Hassan and Hussain.
The Sharifs say the case is politically motivated.
In July 2018, an accountability court sentenced former PM Sharif to 10 years in prison in the case and gave his daughter Maryam Nawaz seven years for abetment. Sharif’s son-in-law Awan got a one-year sentence for not cooperating with the investigation.
Th ex-PM and his daughter subsequently filed an appeal against the jail sentence with the Islamabad High Court, asking it to annul the verdict of the accountability court.
"This is how lies come to end," Nawaz said after the acquittal hearing, lauding her legal team for fighting her case for four years.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, the younger brother of Nawaz Sharif, took to the Twitter:
“The edifice of lies, slander & character assassination has come crumbling down today,” he said.
“Maryam Nawaz's acquittal in the Avenfield Reference is a slap in the face of so-called accountability system that was employed to target Sharif family. My congratulations to Maryam Beti [daughter] & Safdar.”
Sharif was also sentenced in a separate case to seven years in prison in December 2018 and fined $25 million on corruption charges. An anti-corruption court in Islamabad ruled that Sharif was unable to prove the source of income that had led to his ownership of a steel mill in Saudi Arabia.
Sharif left the country to receive medical treatment in London in 2019 and has since not returned.
