Sharif's application seeking 7-day exemption rejected by Pak court

A Pakistani court today rejected an application seeking a seven-day exemption from personal appearance for ousted prime minister Nawaz Sharif and his daughter Maryam in the Avenfield Properties case.

The accountability court directed the father-daughter duo to appear before it on Wednesday, Dawn reported.

They are currently in London where Sharif's wife Begum Kulsoom is undergoing treatment. She has been on the ventilator for a few weeks now.

Sharif and his daughter were seeking an exemption from appearance in the Avenfield reference, which is likely to conclude by tomorrow, the paper said.

The exemption plea for the Sharif family was filed by their counsel Saad Hashmi and Amjad Pervez.

Arguing before the court, Hashmi and Pervez said that the former premier and Maryam had travelled to London on June 14 for the purpose of tending to ailing Kulsoom, who is suffering from cancer and undergoing treatment there.

Hashmi said that upon arrival in London, Sharif was "informed that his wife had suffered a cardiac arrest; that she had been put on a life-supporting ventilator; that she had been shifted to the Intensive Care Unit; and that she was in a very critical condition".

Subsequently, Sharif moved an application for exemption from personal attendance on June 19 and the court granted the exemption until June 23. Owing to Kulsoom's deteriorating condition, a second application for exemption was filed by the applicant on June 25 and the court subsequently granted the same for three days.

Kulsoom is suffering from a cardio-respiratory collapse with confirm pulmonary thromboembolic disease; cardiogenic shock with multiple organ failure including respiratory and renal failure; and malnutrition and re-feeding syndrome, the lawyers told the court.

They said the doctors who are treating Kulsoom are hopeful that she will be able to recover sufficiently during the current week for him to be able to communicate with her.

The counsel was seeking an exemption for Sharif and Maryam from July 02 to July 09. The prosecution, on the other hand, opposed the plea.

Sardar Muzaffar Abbasi and Afzal Qureshi, both additional deputy prosecutor generals of the National Accountability Bureau, argued that since there is an improvement in Kulsoom's health condition, and other family members including both of Sharif's sons were already with their ailing mother, the court should not grant them further exemption.

After hearing all arguments, the judge granted a two-day exemption and asked the ex-prime minister and his daughter to join the proceedings by Wednesday.

The Supreme Court had disqualified Sharif last year in the Panama Papers case, forcing the three-time prime minister to resign. He, however, has dismissed as "politically motivated" the corruption charges linked to the Panama Papers case.

The trial is in final stage as the Supreme Court has directed the trial court to conclude the case by July 10.

The corruption references against Sharif and his family were filed after his ouster.

The political future of Sharif, who heads the country's most powerful political family and is the de-facto leader of the ruling PML-N, is uncertain and he could be jailed if convicted.