PM Shehbaz and Hamza appear in court for a hearing.
On Saturday, PM Shehbaz Sharif and his son, Punjab Chief Minister Hamza Shehbaz, appeared in a Lahore special court for the hearing of a Rs16 billion money laundering case.
They were scheduled to be indicted in the case during the last hearing on May 14, but it was postponed because Shehbaz was in the UK and delayed his return to the country in order to pay his respects to the UAE following the death of its ill president.
Presiding Judge of the Special Court (Central-I) Ijaz Hassan Awan noted at the start of the hearing that conditions outside the court were “not ideal,” alluding to security officers impeding admission.
Meanwhile, Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) prosecutor Farooq Bajwa claimed that three of the defendants in the case had fled and that an application for action had been filed against them.
He asked the court to indict all of the defendants at the same time.
The judge noted that a magistrate court had taken action against the fugitives.
The FIA prosecutor, on the other hand, urged that the proceedings to declare the three accused absconders should be completed, claiming that continuing the case in this manner would benefit them.
Meanwhile, Mohammad Amjad Pervaiz, Shehbaz and Hamza’s counsel, stated that charges were made against his clients between 2008 and 2018, and that the prosecution team has withdrawn many of them from the challan.
