Pakistan's Islamabad High Court (IHC) has ruled to suspend the prison sentence for the country's former prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, as well as those for his daughter Maryam Nawaz and son-in-law Mohammad Safdar, all charged with corruption, until a final decision is made on their appeals, local media reported on Wednesday.
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 19th September, 2018) Pakistan's Islamabad High Court (IHC) has ruled to suspend the prison sentence for the country's former prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, as well as those for his daughter Maryam Nawaz and son-in-law Mohammad Safdar, all charged with corruption, until a final decision is made on their appeals, local media reported on Wednesday.
On July 16, lawyers for the Sharif family filed an appeal with the IHC against the decision of the accountability court, announced on July 6, to sentence the family to prison terms and order them fines for corruption. They asked the IHC to release them on bail until the final ruling is made.
"For the reasons to be recorded later on, the petitions of Nawaz Sharif, Maryam Nawaz and Mohammad Safdar are allowed," Justice Athar Minallah said, as quoted by the Dawn news media outlet.
The date for the hearing will be announced later.
While the former prime minister was sentenced to 10 years in prison and charged with a $10.5 million fine, his daughter was sentenced to seven years in jail and ordered to pay a $2.6 million fine, and his son-in-law to one year with no fine.
In April 2016, the so-called Panama papers were released, revealing that Sharif's children owned offshore companies in the British Virgin Islands and expensive property in the UK capital of London, which prompted a corruption investigation. In July 2017, the Pakistani Supreme Court removed Sharif from office.
