By Islamuddin Sajid
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AA) – Former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has been indicted along with two other family members on corruption charges on Thursday.
Sharif is presently in London, where his wife Kulsoom Nawaz is being treated for cancer. The accountability court also indicted Maryam Nawaz, daughter of Sharif, and her husband Muhammad Safdar.
The former premier’s family has rejected the allegations and told the court that “all corruption charges are based on lies”.
“We have rejected all the allegations in the court because they are based on lies but we respect the court and will face the charges, ” Maryam told reporters outside the court.
Strict security arrangements were observed inside and outside the judicial complex and the ruling party’s workers were barred to enter the court premises.
Supreme Court of Pakistan ousted the former premier from the office on July 28 in Panama Papers case. The court found that Sharif had acted in an untrustworthy manner by failing to declare a salary from his son’s Dubai-based company ahead of the 2013 election.
The apex court had ordered the country’s anti-corruption watchdog National Accountability Bureau (NAB) to open several cases against him, his children, son-in-law and finance minister Ishaq Dar.
Sharif's children — Hassan and Hussain — are in London and his party leaders said that they would not appear before the court to face the graft cases.
The court has already issued non-bailable warrants for both the sons of Sharif for skipping the proceedings.
According to evidence submitted by the National Accountability Bureau, Sharif's have four posh London apartments, two steel mills in Saudi Arabia and several offshore companies in the United Kingdom.
The April 2016 Panama Papers revealed that three of Sharif’s children owned offshore assets not shown on his family's wealth statement, including luxury apartments in London.
*Aamir Latif contributed to this report from Karachi
