Court gives Sharif 7 days to convince his lawyer to rejoin case

The Accountability Court hearing the corruption references against the Sharif family has given Nawaz Sharif a week's time to either hire a new counsel or convince counsel Khawaja Haris to continue representing him.

Resuming the Avenfield reference hearing on Tuesday, Judge Muhammad Bashir asked Sharif whether he has appointed a new defense counsel. Sharif replied that finding a new counsel was tough as Haris had been working on the case for quite some time.

Giving him time till June 19 to either hire a new counsel or convince Haris to rejoin, the accountability court adjourned the Avenfield hearing till June 14. Sharif, daughter Maryam Nawaz and son-in-law captain (retd) Safdar have also been exempted from the June 14 hearing, local media reported. Whereas, hearing of the Al-Azizia reference has been adjourned till June 19.

Sharif’s counsel withdraws from representing him in NAB cases

On Monday, Haris recused himself from representing Sharif, saying that he could not work under such pressure. He said that the Supreme Court (SC) had not accepted his stance on completing the trial in six weeks.

On June 10, the SC gave one month deadline to the accountability court Judge Muhammad Bashir to wrap up the corruption trial against the Sharif family. Judge Bashir had requested the top court to extend the deadline, which expired on June 9.