Maryam Nawaz has asked the court to declare the accountability court's verdict void and order her acquittal from all charges in the case.
ISLAMABAD: (UrduPoint/Pakistan Point News-Oct 5th, 2021) PML-N Vice President Maryam Nawaz on Tuesday approached Islamabad High Court (IHC) challenging the verdict in the Avenfield Apartment reference.
Maryam Nawaz through her counsel Advocate Irfan Qadir submitted that the entire proceedings that resulted in her conviction were a "classic example of outright violations of law and political engineering hitherto unheard of in the history of Pakistan".
She also attached a reference to the speech made by former IHC judge Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui at the District Bar Association, Rawalpindi on July 21, 2018, wherein he had claimed that the country's top intelligence agency was involved in manipulating judicial proceedings.
"The ISI officials had approached the chief justice asking him to make sure Nawaz and his daughter should not be bailed before the elections," reads the petition, quoting an excerpt from ex-judge Siddiqui's speech.
On July 6, 2018, Accountability Court judge Mohammad Bashir had convicted former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, his daughter Maryam Nawaz and her husband retired Captain Mohammad Safdar in the Avenfield Apartment reference and handed them jail terms of 10, seven and one years, respectively, for owning assets beyond known sources of income.
They had filed appeals in the IHC against the conviction. The court had on Sep 18 the same year suspended their sentences and released them on bail. NAB wants expeditious disposal of the appeals in 30 days.
Taking to Twitter, Maryam Nawaz said that the media did not highlight the core subject of her petition submitted to the IHC and the reason is best known to them. "The summary of which is that the case/verdict against me was pre-planned, orchestrated and influenced by Gen Faiz Hameed, the then DG [counter-intelligence]," she wrote.
She said Justice Siddiqui also revealed the same things.
Maryam Nawaz asked the court to consider the events took place before and after conviction of her and her father. She also mentioned
Accountability Judge Arshad Malik whose video had also gone viral in which he claimed that he had been “pressured and blackmailed” to convict Nawaz Sharif.
Malik, in December 2018, had convicted ex-premier Nawaz Sharif in the Al Azizia reference, sentencing him to seven years in jail. However, he had acquitted Sharif in the Flagship reference.
Maryam Nawaz asked the court to declare the accountability court's verdict void and order her acquittal from all charges in the case.
