ISLAMABAD – The Islamabad High Court on Saturday fixed September 18 as the date for the hearing of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif’s plea for the suspension of his sentence in the Al-Azizia Steel Mills reference.
Contrarily, on the same date, the court will take up an appeal filed by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) against Sharif’s acquittal in the Flagship Investments corruption reference.
A two-member bench comprising of Justice Aamer Farooq and Justice Mohsin Akhtar Kiyani are scheduled to hear the appeals.
Verdicts in both corruption references were announced by an accountability court judge Arshad Malik.
However, due to summer vacations, the hearings have been set in the month of September.
On December 24, 2018, an accountability court had sentenced Nawaz to seven years in prison in the Al-Azizia Steel Mills corruption reference and acquitted him in the Flagship reference.
In a short verdict announced, the court said there was concrete evidence against the former premier in the Al-Azizia reference and that he was unable to provide a money trail in the case.
The court ordered that Nawaz be “sentenced to rigorous imprisonment for a term of seven years along with a fine of Rs1.5 billion and US$25 million”.
COURTESY- GNN
