Sharif’s son-in-law Safdar is arrested
karachi — Pakistani authorities on Sunday arrested the son—inlaw of ousted Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, who was on Friday sentenced in absentia to 10 years in prison over a corruption ruling linked to his family’s purchase of luxury flats in London.
Sharif’s daughter Maryam, seen as his chosen political heir, was sentenced to seven years in prison and her husband Captain Muhammad Safdar was given a one-year jail term in a ruling many see as a blow to the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) party before the July 25 election.
Pakistan’s anti-corruption National Accountability Bureau (NAB) said Safdar handed himself in.
Earlier in the day, Safdar and supporters had driven around the garrison city of Rawalpindi holding impromptu rallies, local television showed. “After continued raids at his houses in Abbotabad, Mansehra and Haripur, Safdar decided to surrender before NAB,” NAB said.
NAB requested the media not to air Safdar’s live speeches, saying they are against the law and the code of conduct of the media regulator. —
islamabad — Former prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi on Sunday raised doubts over the legitimacy of the July 25 elections.
“I have doubts about the transparency and fairness of the elections,” the 59-year-old politician who held the office from August 2017 to June 2018 told Efe news in Bhara Kahu on the outskirts of Islamabad.
“We have had a history of nondemocratic rule in Pakistan and interference in elections was common in the past. The last two elections were relatively free of interference and we were hoping that this time it would be a much better process but unfortunately, that has not been the case.”
Abbasi came to power after his predecessor, Nawaz Sharif, was disqualified from office by the Supreme Court for not declaring the earnings from a company run by his son.
But Sharif’s problems did not end there. On Friday, an anti-corruption court sentenced him to 10 years in prison for failing to disclose the source of funds used to buy four luxury apartments in London in the 1990s.
Regarding Sharif’s disqualification and sentencing, Abbasi said: “Maybe the policies (of the government) were in conflict with the considerations of the establishment.”
“In a country that spent half its time under military rule, there is a certain culture, there are certain practices, which take time to go away,” according to Abbasi, who has three decades of political experience.
Meanwhile, talking to a private news channel, former prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi has said said the accountability court decision against Nawaz Sharif was shocking for the country.
Abbasi said: “We were expecting such a decision against the former prime minister.” Replying to a question, he said that Nawaz Sharif was ready to go to jail.
The PML-N workers were ready to come out on the streets after this decision but they were stopped by the party leadership, he added.
Abbasi said democracy was imperative to achieve progress in the country.
He said the country needed a “truth commission”, which should be constituted with national consensus to unearth facts behind all key events. — IANS, APP