PM Shehbaz granted permanent exemption from appearance in money laundering case
The Lahore’s accountability court on Tuesday granted Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif a permanent exemption from appearing in the Rs16 billion money laundering case.
Judge Qamar-us-Zaman heard the case and accepted the PM Shehbaz Sharif’s petition to exempt him from the hearings and authorised the PM to appoint a representative to appear in court on his behalf.
The court sought a response from NAB on Hamza Shehbaz’s request for permanent exemption accepted his request for one-day attendance waiver.
The case:
The FIA booked PM Shehbaz and his sons Hamza and Suleman in Nov 2020 under sections 419, 420, 468, 471, 34 and 109 of Prevention of Corruption Act and r/w 3/4 of Anti Money Laundering Act.
According to the FIA report submitted to the court, the investigation team has “detected 28 benami accounts of the Shehbaz family through which money-laundering of Rs16.3bn was committed during 2008-18. The FIA examined the money trail of 17,000 credit transactions.”
The report added that the amount was kept in “hidden accounts” and “given to Shehbaz Sharif in a personal capacity”. “This amount (Rs. 16 billion) has nothing to do with the sugar business (of Shehbaz family),” it claimed.
