IHC to hear Nawaz’s appeal against Al-Azizia conviction on merit

The Islamabad High Court (IHC) observed on Thursday that it will hear Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) supremo Nawaz Sharif’s appeal against his conviction in the Al-Azizia reference on merit. A two-member bench comprising IHC Chief Justice Aamer Farooq and Justice Miangul Hasan Aurangzeb heard the former prime minister's appeal, scheduled along with the National Accountability Bureau's (NAB) plea seeking an extension in his sentence, rendered in June 2018. The capital’s high court had admitted applications for the revival of Sharif's appeals against his conviction in the Avenfield and Al-Azizia corruption references last month. Listening to a case "on the merits” refers to a case whose decision rests upon the law as it applied to the particular evidence and facts presented in the case. This is in opposition to cases whose decisions rest upon procedural grounds. However, the high court rejected NAB's request to remand the case back to the accountability court, and declare Nawaz's conviction in the case as null and void. Nawaz conviction An accountability court, on December 24, 2018, sentenced former prime minister Nawaz Sharif to seven-year rigorous imprisonment after it found him guilty in Al-Azizia reference, one of the three graft cases filed by NAB in line with the apex court's order. The Supreme Court on July 28, 2017 disqualified Sharif in Panama Papers case and ordered NAB to file separate cases which were respectively called Avenfield, Al-Azizia and Flagship references. Sharif and his family members have already been convicted in Avenfield case. However, then accountability court judge (late) Muhammad Arshad Malik acquitted Sharif in the Flagship reference. In his verdict in Al-Azizia case, the judge said the accused (Nawaz Sharif) is held guilty for the offence of corruption and corrupt practices and accordingly, is convicted under section 10 of the NAO 1999 ‘read with schedule thereto’. “And consequent upon his conviction, having regard to the facts and the circumstances of the case, the convict is hereby sentenced to rigorous imprisonment for a term of 07 years along with a fine of Rs1.2 billion and $25 million,” the order said.

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