ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) senior leader and former prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi has denied any possibility of talks with the government, which came into power through a 'rigged' election.

Talking to the newsmen after appearing before an accountability court in connection with Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) case, he said "We are not ready to hold talks with this selected and controversial government."

To a question about Prime Minister Imran Khan's offer regarding election reforms, he said election reforms were done there, where election laws were followed. For the last six years, Imran Khan did not produce any documents related to foreign funding case and today he was talking about election reforms.

Abbasi said the man who came into power through a 'controversial and rigged' election was talking about election reforms. Imran Khan, who himself does not care about law is talking about election reforms, he said. Regarding reference against him, Abbasi said a charge sheet consisting of 26 pages has been handed over to him in this case, which consists of 64 points or allegations.

I have consulted over 10 lawyers and they told me that they have never seen a charge sheet which consists of 26 pages, he said. Abbasi said the lawyers told that out of 64 points or allegations in the charge sheet only point no 63 was a charge sheet.

The remaining 63 allegation had been leveled just for insulting me, he said, adding that these 63 points or allegations have nothing to do with this case.The former premier also said a similar kind of questionnaire be send to Lt-Gen Asim Saleem Bajwa (retd), which was given to him.

He had requested the court to telecast the hearing of his case live, and he will bear the whole expenses in order to bring facts before the public as well as to know what is going on in the accountability court of our country, he said.

After the court rejected his plea seeking to telecast live hearing of his case, Abbasi said we respect this court even after former judge Arshad Malik case NAB court proceedings have become suspicious.

No efforts have been done to restore the confidence over accountability courts, he said, adding that today this court rejected his application seeking to telecast live proceeding of his case. He further said the people laugh at Pakistan what was happening in our courts is a joke. Earlier, during the hearing, the court rejected Abbasi's plea seeking to telecast hearing of the case live.

Abbasi's counsel Barrister Zafarullah Khan requested the court to fix day for hearing of this case and we will ensure our presence at any cost. I will check whether we can fix a day or not, the judge said. Khan said this case should be heard like other cases.

This case should not be heard like the case of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif and neither we will allow it to be made like Sharif case, he said. The judge said every case was important for the court.

The judge further said the court has more than 30 cases and it would be difficult for him to allocate one day for each case. Later, the court started recording the statement of prosecution witness, Muhammad Hussain, an assistant director Ministry of Petroleum.

He told the court that he appeared before NAB investigation officer (IO) Zubair Malik on Nov 6, 2019 in connection with investigation of M/s LNG Terminal-I and others. He further said he had produced original documents regarding the case and recorded his statement before the IO.

He produced different documents before the court including copy of summary of Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) of the Cabinet dated May 11, 2012 with the subject of import of LNG, copy of expression of interest pertaining to import of LNG under third party, copy of purchase of RNLG based on integrated project structure and copy of term sheet proposal for long-term sale and purchase of LNG. The court made all documents produced by the prosecution witness part of court record, and adjourned hearing till Dec 1. The prosecution witness will continue recording of statement at the next hearing.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2020

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