NAB issues arrest warrants against Nawaz Sharif

Islamabad: The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has issued arrest warrants against former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in Chaudhry Sugar Mills case. The NAB likely will present Sharif before an accountability court on Friday to seek his physical remand. According to sources quoted by Dawn News, the NAB chairman had issued arrest warrants against the erstwhile prime minister in the new money-laundering case. A team of Lahore bureau would visit Sharif in the Kot Lakhpat jail today to take him to the accountability court.

Sharif is serving a seven-year imprisonment in Al-Azizia Mills corruption case. Earlier, on August 8, the accountability bureau had arrested his daughter Maryam Nawaz and nephew Yousuf Abbas in the Chaudhry Sugar Mills case. Both of them are on judicial remand till October 23. NAB mainly accused Maryam of being involved in money laundering under the garb of sale/purchase of the sugar mills’ shares.

The accountability watchdog said that she had become the largest shareholder of the mills in 2008, having over 12 million shares and her assets had been found disproportionate to



her income. During the probe, it was revealed that huge investments were made in the mills from 2001 to 2017 in the name of issuing shares for foreigners. Interestingly, later on, the same shares of the company were transferred back to Maryam, Hussain and Nawaz at different occasions without paying any money to the said foreign business partners.

Maryam, in her appearance before the NAB combined investigation team, failed to establish her business links with the foreign nationals including Saeed Saif Bin Jabar Al-Suweidi, a UAE national, Sheikh Zakauddin, a UK national, Hani Ahmad Jamjoom, a Saudi national, and Naseer Abdullah Lootah, a UAE national, after which she was arrested.

NAB sources said investigators had come to a conclusion that names of the foreigners were used as proxies to make huge investments in the company as the Sharif family did not have white money for investment. Moreover, the bureau has also been investigating all members of the Shahbaz family for alleged money-laundering and owning assets beyond known sources of means.