Sharif warns detractors for dragging daughter to court in Panama Papers case

An angry Nawaz Sharif today warned that those who dragged his daughter Maryam to Pakistan's anti-corruption court in the Panama papers case will bear the consequences of their actions.

Three corruption cases were launched last year against the deposed Pakistan prime minister and his family on their posh properties in London which were allegedly bought in 1990s when he served as premier.

Sharif's daughter Maryam, sons Hassan and Hussain and son-in-law Muhammad Safdar are co-accused in the Avenfield case filed by the National Accountability Bureau.

Addressing the media outside the accountability court, Sharif claimed that Maryam, considered to be his heir apparent, had no connection with politics, but yet she is being dragged into court cases.

Sharif, 68, said that it was "painful" for him to see his daughter testifying as an accused in the witness box.

"What could be worst than dragging her into court out of revenge and spite," he said.

"In this ruthless game, you are even involving our daughters. Don't choose a path which makes it impossible to return from," he told his detractors. "Everyone will have to bear the consequence of this behaviour," the three-time prime minister, who was disqualified by the Supreme Court last year, said.

"Maryam has no connection to the era for which we are being punished. They are questioning her about Gulf Steel. She was only a year old at the time," he was quoted as saying by the Express Tribune.

Earlier, Maryam, 44, recorded her statement in the Avenfield case.

The accountability court had prepared a questionnaire for Sharif, Maryam and her husband to answer as their final words in the Avenfield case.

Sharif read out his answers in court during the last two hearings. Maryam also blamed strained civil-military relations for the outcome of the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) report.

Both father and daughter have maintained that the members of the investigation team probing the Sharif family were impartial and had been influenced by others to manipulate the outcome.

Maryam, while recording her statement, raised multiple objections against the JIT that had investigated her family's business dealings on the orders of the Supreme Court.

Maryam termed the inclusion of two officials of intelligence agencies in JIT "inappropriate" and questioned the competence of the entire team.

She brought to the court's notice that retired Brigadier Muhammad Nauman Saeed, a director in Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), was also "a member of the committee that had probed the issue of Dawn Leaks, which had intensified civil and military tension."