By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: A special court in Lahore on Wednesday acquitted Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and his son Hamza Shehbaz in a multi-million-dollar money laundering case.
The brief verdict, which was reserved earlier in the day, was announced by Judge Ijaz Hassan Awan. The court declared that prosecuting the accused would be a waste of time.
The Federal Investigation Agency in November 2020 had booked Sharif and his sons under various sections of the Prevention of Corruption Act and Anti-Money Laundering Act for allegedly committing over Rs16 billion money laundering.
As the FIA’s special court was to indict Sharif and his son in this case last month, they filed a petition for their acquittal. Their counsel Amjad Pervaiz presented ‘final arguments’ in the court on Monday pleading that the FIA has no evidence against his clients.
The defence counsel said no prosecution witness testified against the petitioners. He argued that the prosecution failed to establish any link between the petitioners and the benami bank accounts, which it included in its investigation report.
The court has already declared Sharif’s younger son, Suleman Shehbaz, a proclaimed offender in this case.
PM Sharif thanked God for victory in the “false, baseless, and political revenge-based case of money laundering”. “We stand vindicated in front of the court, law and nation today,” he said in a tweet.
The party, PML-N, in a tweet said another fabricated case created for political victimisation comes to its inevitable end.
Ousted prime minister Imran Khan has claimed that the Sharif family is given a political relief in court cases under a deal with the establishment.
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