Accountability Court Reserved the Judgment
Accountability Court Reserved the Judgment: The Accountability Court reserved the judgment on two supplementary references filed by the National Accountability Bureau about Flagship Investments, Al Azizia Steel Mill and Hill Metal Establishment against the Sharif family.
Ex-Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, Maryam Nawaz and Capt. (Rtd) Safdar were summoned for hearing of the references filed by NAB on Thursday.
Ayesha Hamid, defense counsel, argued that NAB can only file supplementary references when new assets are found. She mentioned that NAB attained some files from open sources but did not produce any related documents through investigation. She added that neither any new statement nor assets had highlighted in the supplementary references.
She further said that Supreme Court should be requested to grant more time then the six-month deadline for hearing the references if the court accepts the supplementary references.
The arguments of Ayesha are opposed by NAB’s prosecutor. He argued that no extra time would be consumed as NAB would produce three prosecution witnesses in the next hearing and 17 more in the hearing after that.
Ayesha Hamid objected that the defense team cannot cross-examine all 17 witnesses at once as they have to prepare before cross-examining a witness.
The Accountability Court reserved the verdict after hearing the arguments from the both sides. The court also granted exemption to Nawaz Sherif and Mariyam Nawaz for the hearing scheduled today afternoon.