Court rejects Sharifs’ plea to club Wajid Zia’s testimony

–Sharifs’ application stated that giving more than one opportunity to Zia for recording testimony may hamper their defence

ISLAMABAD: The accountability court hearing the graft references against Nawaz Sharif and his family on Friday, dismissed the former premier’s request to club the testimony of Panama Joint Investigation Team (JIT) head Wajid Zia in the Al-Azizia, Flagship and Avenfield references and ordered the prime witness to appear in court on March 8 and record his statement in the Avenfield case.

Judge Muhammad Bashir heard the Al-Azizia and Flagship supplementary references first, during which the court recorded statements of three new witnesses, Abdul Hanan, Rizwan Khan and Sunil Ijaz, who were also cross-examined by Sharif’s counsel, Khawaja Harris.

Nawaz Sharif who was present in the courtroom for the first half of the day, later exited the court premises while the hearing was underway. The former premier, owing to the inclement weather, did not hold a media talk.

In the application, the Sharif family argued that giving more than one opportunity to Zia for recording testimony will give him a chance to improve his argument which may hamper the Sharif family’s defense.

Responding to the defense counsel’s arguments, NAB lawyer pointed out that if Zia changing his statement it will only benefit the Sharif family, allowing them to raise objections on his testimony.

Haris said that Zia should record his statement at once in the references and the defence team would then cross-examine the witness even if it takes days. The defense counsel cited a previous observation by the Islamabad High Court which allowed that a “request can be made to the learned trial court for cross-examination of joint witnesses which are common in three references on the same day or on the following day so that they have little or no chance for thinking and improving upon what is to be said,” to back its argument.

Each of the three references are supplemented by the same nine volumes constituting the JIT report, six out of nine witnesses in one reference are the same, six out of 13 in another and two out of 10 in the third are common.

Earlier, different courts had turned down Sharifs’ request to combine the references and the trial court separately recorded testimonies of the witnesses.

Moreover, the court adjourned until March 5 the hearing of the Flagship reference, when four witnesses have been summoned.

The hearing of the Al Azizia reference was also adjourned until March 7, when six witnesses will appear in court to record their statements.

Earlier, on Thursday the appeals filed by former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, Kulsoom Nawaz and Shehbaz Sharif related to the payment of wealth tax were dismissed.

The Sharif family had challenged the valuation of wealth taxes on their various shares in several companies. They maintained in their petition that for four years, the petitioners’ wealth tax was assessed disproportionately to the market value of their stocks

During the hearing, five more witnesses recorded their statements while cross-examination over their statements was also completed.

PML-N LEADERS BARRED FROM ENTERING COURTROOM:

Minister of State and Special Assistant to prime minister Musadik Malik and Pakistan Muslim League- Nawaz (PML-N) leader Maiza Hameed were stopped by security officials outside the accountability court hearing graft references against the Sharif family on Friday and were not allowed to enter the courtroom.

“You’re allowing some people to go inside while you’re barring others from entering, even though you know I come here daily,” Musadik reportedly protested, however, both the leaders were still not allowed to enter the courtroom.