IHC restores Nawaz Sharif’s pleas in Avenfield & Al-Azizia cases

The Islamabad High Court (IHC) Thursday restored pleas of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) supremo Nawaz Sharif seeking restoration of appeals against accountability courts’ conviction verdicts in the Avenfield and Al-Azizia cases.

Nawaz, a thrice-ousted prime minister, appeared in person before an IHC division bench — led by Chief Justice Aamer Farooq and comprising Justice Miangul Hasan Aurangzeb — which heard his plea against the sentences awarded to him in the two graft cases.

The capital’s high court had granted a protective bail to the PML-N supremo on October 19, allowing him to return safely to the country and appear before the court on October 24.

Then, on October 24, after the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) told the court that it had no objections to the pleas filed by Nawaz, the three-time deposed premier’s bail in the Avenfield and Al-Azizia cases was extended till October 26.

The ousted prime minister was handed down a 10-year jail sentence in the Avenfield properties corruption reference for owning assets beyond known income in July 2018 and a year for not cooperating with the anit-graft watchdog — both of the sentences were to be served concurrently.

In the Al-Azizia Steel Mills corruption reference, Nawaz was sentenced to seven years in jail on December 24, 2018, and then taken to Rawalpindi’s Adiala Jail from where he was shifted to Lahore’s Kot Lakhpat jail the next day.

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The elder Sharif was released from jail in March 2019 and traveled to London for medical treatment in November 2019 after permission from the Lahore High Court. Later, the IHC declared him a proclaimed offender in both cases in December 2020.

But last week, the protective bail granted by the IHC in both the graft cases, paved the way for Nawaz’s smooth return to the country on October 21 — after ending his four-year exile.