Last witness to record statement against Sharif family in Avenfield case today

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ISLAMABAD: An accountability court conducting corruption proceedings against the Sharif family will record the statement of last witness, National Accountability Bureau’s (NAB) Investigation Officer Imran Dogar, in the Avenfield case today.

Judge Mohammad Bashir is conducting the proceedings.

Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) supremo Nawaz Sharif, daughter Maryam Nawaz and son-in-law captain (retd) Safdar are present in the court.

The NAB investigation officer and the DG operations are the last two persons to record their statements regarding the case.

At the last hearing on April 24, Maryam’s counsel Amjad Pervez had conducted cross-examination of prosecution witness Zahir Shah.

Shah, who is NAB’s DG Operations, had said he had acquired a copy of Volume X of the JIT report through a letter of the Supreme Court (SC) registrar.

However, he had said that the contents of the volume were not shared by him with anyone but the investigation officer.

During the course of hearing, Amjad had objected to the prosecutor’s reported interference in the cross-examination.

According to the documents acquired by Shah, the Sharif family’s London apartments were transferred to the possession of offshore companies Nielson and Nescoll in 1993-1995, and not in 2005-2006.

Nawaz Sharif, in his previous statements, had said that the Avenfield properties were transferred in the name of the companies in 2005-2006 and that they belonged to his children. Nawaz’s children Hussain and Hasan were young in 1993-95 and did not have any source of income. Therefore, they cannot be considered owners of the properties and thus the former premier was their real owner, the documents state.

The Avenfield properties reference is among three cases filed against Nawaz and his family by NAB in 2017 on the Supreme Court’s directives.