PM Shehbaz, Hamza Shehbaz acquitted in money laundering case
The Lahore’s Special Court on Wednesday acquitted Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and his son Hamza Shahbaz in the Rs16 billion money laundering case.
Special Court (Central-I) judge Ijaz Hassan Awan announced a reserved verdict after the hearing and acquitted Shehbaz Sharif and Hamza Shehbaz in the mega money laundering case saying that, “the court had accepted the acquittal pleas.”
The hearing of the money laundering case against Shehbaz Sharif and Hamza Shehbaz and others was held in the Special Court Central Lahore where the Prime Minister did not appear today, his legal team submitted a request for one day’s attendance exemption.
The father-son duo — who were summoned today — did not appear before the court as their counsel filed a request for exemption as PM Shehbaz had official engagements and Hamza was not well.
Today’s hearing:
PM Shehbaz’s lawyer Amjad Pervaiz took the stand that, “no FIA witness mentioned the name of Shehbaz Sharif or Hamza Shehbaz,” adding that, “the investigating officer tried to distort the statements of the witnesses.”
“FIA made this case on the basis of malice, no money directly came into the account of Shahbaz Sharif and Hamza Shahbaz, according to law the prosecution has to prove its case, the prosecution has not presented any evidence on the charge of bribery.” Pervaiz said.
FIA lawyer Farooq Bajwa said that the suspect Masroor Anwar has been operating the account of Shehbaz Sharif, to which Amjad Pervez defended that, “Masroor never operated Shehbaz Sharif’s account.”
Prosecution lawyer marked that, all the benami accounts were operated by the employees of Ramadan Sugar Mill.
“All the records of this case were compiled during the PTI tenure,” PM’s lawyer replied.
The lawyer FIA said that, “even after the death of Gulzar Ahmed, his account continued to operate by Masroor Anwar which was used to made transactions for Shehbaz Sharif.
The court asked FIA’s counsel whether he has any evidence or record to which counsel FIA replied that there is no evidence on record.
After hearing the arguments of the parties, The Lahore’s Special Court acquitted Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and his son Hamza Shahbaz in the Rs16 billion mega money laundering case.
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.
