LAHORE: An accountability court on Tuesday allowed permanent exemption from court appearances to Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif in the money laundering reference against him and his family members.

The court accepted the PM’s plea and asked him to appoint a representative to appear in court instead of him. The court also granted one-day exemption to opposition leader in the Punjab Assembly Hamza Shehbaz and sought a response from the NAB on his request for a permanent exemption for attendance.

The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) claimed that in the last 30 years, the Shehbaz family assets increased from Rs 2 million to Rs 7,000 million, which the family had failed to justify. The bureau also alleged that the family members and benamidars of Shehbaz received fake foreign remittances in their personal bank accounts, adding that billions of rupees were laundered through foreign pay orders deposited in the personal bank accounts of Hamza Shehbaz and Suleman Shehbaz.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2022