LAHORE: The Lahore High Court on Tuesday extended pre-arrest bail of Leader of Opposition in National Assembly Shehbaz Sharif in a money laundering case and directed his counsel to conclude his arguments on next hearing on September 24.

Earlier, counsel of Shehbaz argued that his client had a fundamental right to have access to a report of the Financial Monitoring Unit (FMU) relied upon by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) to initiate the money laundering inquiry against Shehbaz and his family.

The NAB had told the court previously that the said report was a secret document and had not been made part of the reference filed before the accountability court.

Advocate Pervez questioned the authenticity of FMU report, saying how a person could be tried on the basis of a document which was not even part of the trial against him. He said the report of the FMU was a regular affair and it was issued on a monthly basis. He pointed out that no bank reported any suspected transaction and the NAB also had not nominated any bank official as suspect in the reference.

The NAB special prosecutor interrupted and said the court had already rejected this argument of the petitioner’s counsel in bail matter of leader of Opposition in Punjab Assembly Hamza Shehbaz.

Advocate Amjad argued that the powers of the chairman of NAB were not absolute and he was duty bound to make his opinion in any matter strictly in light of Supreme Court’s verdicts. He said initiating inquiries on anonymous complaints was a clear violation of the laws.

The counsel pointed out that Mirza Shahzad Akbar, Special Assistant to Prime Minister, and other federal ministers had waived the copies of the reference at a press conference two months before the NAB filed it before the trial court.

The bench allowed the counsel to read the transcript of the ministers’ press conference despite an objection raised by the prosecutor. Shahbaz also spoke in his defence with the court’s permission.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2020