In a victory for PML-N, IHC overturns Maryam and Capt Safdar’s conviction in Avenfield case

Four years after their conviction, PML-N Vice President Maryam Nawaz and her husband Captain (retd) Safdar were acquitted in the Avenfield properties corruption reference after the Islamabad High Court overturned the July 2018 verdict on Thursday.

Speaking outside the court, the PML-N leader hailed the verdict and said that their stance stood “vindicated”. She started her media talk while speaking on the phone to her father and paused midway to receive another from her uncle Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, both of whom congratulated Maryam on the victory.

Separately, PM Shehbaz said the “edifice of lies, slander and character assassination” had come crumbling down.

“Maryam’s acquittal in the Avenfield reference is a slap in the face of so-called accountability system that was employed to target the Sharif family. My congratulations to Maryam beti and Safdar,” he said.

While a short order is awaited, based on today’s verdict, Maryam is now eligible to contest elections.

Lawyer Mirza Moiz Baig while talking to Dawn.com said “a person who has been convicted of a crime involving corruption or moral turpitude is disqualified from contesting elections unless a period of five years has lapsed since their release”.

“While the Supreme Court has, in the case of Samiullah Baloch, held that a disqualification under Article 62(1)(f) continues for life, a disqualification under Article 63(1)(g) isn’t incurable,” he explained.

“Maryam Nawaz, unlike her father, was never declared to fall short of the requirements enshrined under Article 62(1)(f). To the contrary, the only bar to her contesting elections was her conviction in the Avenfield reference. With the conviction being overturned by the Islamabad High Court, Maryam Nawaz’s candidature for an election to the Parliament will no longer trigger Article 63(1)(g).”

“The judgment rendered by the high court may, thus, pave the way for Maryam Nawaz’s formal foray into electoral politics,” he concluded.

Today’s hearing

A two-member bench, comprising Justice Aamer Farooq and Justice Mohsin Akhtar Kayani, presided over today’s hearing during which the court heard arguments from both sides.

At the outset of the hearing, Maryam’s lawyer Amjad Pervaiz and NAB prosecutor Sardar Muzaffar appeared before the court.

“At the previous hearing Usman Cheema presented the arguments but he is not feeling well today,” the bureau’s lawyer told the court. He then requested to present arguments with the bench’s permission.

During today’s hearing, Justice Kiyani remarked that the opinion of the investigating officer could not be considered as evidence. “The joint investigation team did not present any fact, it just collected information,” he observed.

For his part, Muzaffar said that Wajid Zia (former director of the Federal Investigation Agency) had overviewed the documents himself and expressed his opinion on it.

“I will show from the documents that these properties were purchased in 1999,” the NAB prosecutor said.

At one point, Justice Farooq observed that the Sharif family’s stance was that they had bought the properties in 2006. “Despite their admission, Nawaz is not related [to the case],” he remarked.

Justice Kayani also observed that on the basis of these documents, the NAB had prepared the entire case against Maryam. “In the entire case by the NAB, there is no [mention] of Nawaz,” Justice Farooq noted.

Justice Farooq remarked that a property being in a daughter’s name did not necessarily mean that it was owned by the father.

The NAB prosecutor contended that the Sharif family had not submitted any documents in its defence.

At that, Justice Farooq said, “Why should they have presented any documents? It was not their job. The NAB had to prove [the case against them].”

Justice Kayani added, “They should have stood silently. They should not have said anything.”

“If they admit while standing in the rostrum that they owned the properties, even then the prosecution has to prove [the case against them],” Justice Farooq added. He said that NAB’s case may be valid, but it had failed to prove it.

“Captain (retd) Safdar was convicted on the basis of the trust deed. Even if we consider that this is a fake document, all parties are accepting [it],” he said, adding that there was a possibility that the document was “false and prepared later”.

The reference

On July 6, a few weeks before the elections in 2018, the accountability judge of Islamabad, who was working under the supervision of an apex court judge, convicted the Sharif family in the Avenfield apartment reference.

Former prime minister Nawaz Sharif was handed 10 years as jail time for owning assets beyond known income and one year for not cooperating with the National Accountability Bureau (NAB). Meanwhile, Maryam was given 7 years for abetment after she was found “instrumental in concealment of the properties of her father” and one year for non-cooperation with the bureau.

Safdar was given one year jail time — for not cooperating with NAB, and aiding and abetting Nawaz and Maryam.

The Sharif family had filed appeals against its conviction before the IHC in the second week of August 2018. The court had on Sep 18 the same year suspended their sentences and released them on bail.

In October last year, Maryam filed a new application, along with “extremely relevant, simple and clear-cut facts”, with the IHC seeking annulment of that verdict.

In her application, Maryam stated that the entire proceedings that resulted in her conviction were a “classic example of outright violations of law and political engineering hitherto unheard of in the history of Pakistan”.

She also attached a reference to the speech made by former IHC judge Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui at the District Bar Association, Rawalpindi on July 21, 2018, wherein he had claimed that the country’s top intelligence agency was involved in manipulating judicial proceedings.

“The ISI officials had approached the chief justice asking him to make sure Nawaz and his daughter should not be bailed before the elections,” read the petition, quoting an excerpt from ex-judge Siddiqui’s speech.

More to follow