Lahore: A Pakistani court has declared Prime Minister Sherbaz Sharif’s daughter and her husband “not guilty” of all charges in a major corruption and money laundering case “within a single hearing”.
The prime minister’s daughter Rabia Imran and her husband Ali Imran Yusuf were not found to be involved in the Punjab Saf Pani corruption and money laundering case as there was no evidence against them, the anti-corruption agency told an anti-corruption court on Monday.
Last week, an accountability court suspended the permanent arrest warrant issued against the couple in the multi-billion dollar corruption case.
The accountability court issued permanent arrest warrants against them in 2022 during the tenure of the Imran Khan government.
Rabia and her husband fled to the UK in 2022 to evade arrest, and a court later declared them criminals.
An official said the court, based on the ACE report, cleared the couple of all corruption and money laundering charges at the first hearing in the case.
Rabia and her husband returned to the country from the UK a few weeks ago after a court granted bail.
Prime Minister Shehbaz was also implicated in the corruption case but was acquitted due to lack of evidence.
Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party claimed that the acquittal of Prime Minister Shehbaz and other members of the ruling coalition in various corruption cases was the result of “a damaged judicial system” and “Nationalist Party-Pakistan Islamic Front relations,” referring to the alliance between the National Accountability Bureau and the military-backed government.
The party called the acquittals “the end of justice” and accused the judiciary of acting as a “silent accomplice” in state-sponsored political terrorism.
Nawaz Sharif, a three-time former prime minister of the ruling Muslim League, was also acquitted in corruption cases, including Azizia’s, for which he spent seven years in a Lahore jail.
Imran Khan was ousted through a no-confidence motion in April 2022. He was subsequently arrested in August 2023 and has since been imprisoned for multiple cases.
This article was generated from automated news agency feeds without modifications to the text.
