Court concludes hearing NAB references

An accountability court has reserved its verdict in the National Accountability Bureau’s (NAB) Flagship Investment and Al-Azizia references against former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, DawnNewsTV reported on Wednesday. The verdict will be announced on December 24 (Monday), which is the revised deadline set by the Supreme Court to wrap up the references. The accountability court had indicted Sharif in the said references for holding assets beyond his known sources of income in August 2017. Sharif ’s counsel Khawaja Haris today furnished documents related to Hasan Nawaz’s offshore companies and asked accountability court judge Arshad Malik for more time to submit additional documents. The request for a full week’s time was, however, turned down by the judge, who told Haris that he can submit the documents in court latest by Monday. Haris, while presenting his final argument today, told the judge that “Nawaz Sharif has never admitted that he received a salary from Capital FZE”, adding that his client’s position in the said company was “honourary”. The counsel claimed that Sharif had obtained employment in Capital FZE for visa purposes only. Not a penny’s corruption proven against me: Sharif Sharif, following the hearing, had a brief chat with media representatives outside the court, during which he claimed that “not a penny of corruption was proven against me”.“This was my 78th appearance in this case and in the one before we had appeared 87 times,” he said. “This was a very painful [experience]. “I have been serving the people for 35 years. I have been the chief minister twice and the prime minister thrice. I am very happy that I have done my duty, and I think that since I have stepped in politics I have never indulged in corruption nor have I ever misused my powers.” The former prime minister also lauded the media for its responsible reporting on the cases against him and “conveying the facts to the nation”.