Nawaz Sharif, Daughter Arrive In Lahore After Jail Sentence Is Suspended

Agencies
September 20, 2018

Lahore, Sept 20: Ousted Pakistan prime minister Nawaz Sharif, his daughter Maryam and son-in-law were released from prison on Wednesday, hours after a top court suspended their sentences in a major corruption case that wrecked their political career.

In a relief to the Sharif family which is still grieving from the death of Nawaz's wife Begum Kulsoom, a two-judge bench of the Islamabad High Court suspended the jail sentences of the embattled former prime minister Sharif, his daughter Maryam and son-in-law Capt (retd) Muhammad Safdar in the Avenfield corruption case and ordered their release.

Sharif's younger brother and President of his Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) Shehbaz Sharif and other party leaders met the former premier at the high-security Adiala Prison before he was released, Geo News reported.

Shehbaz, along with party leaders, met Nawaz in the office of the jail superintendent.

During the meeting, Nawaz Sharif said, "I have not done anything wrong; my conscience is satisfied."

Nawaz Sharif told party leaders that Almighty Allah favours what is right and just. "Allah will grant justice to me," he said.

The former three-time premier, his daughter and son-in-law were taken to the Noor Khan Airbase amidst tight security. They arrived in Lahore, the bastion of the Sharif family, on a special plane, where the trio received a rousing welcome from thousands of party supporters.

Earlier, a two-judge bench of the Islamabad High Court heard the petitions filed by Sharif, Maryam and Safdar challenging their conviction related to the purchase of four luxury flats in London through corrupt practices.

"The instant writ petition is allowed and sentence awarded to the petitioners by the accountability court shall remain suspended till the final adjudication of the appeal filed by the petitioner," reads the judgment.

A date will now be fixed for the hearing of the appeals.

The accountability court judge Mohammad Bashir had sentenced the trio on July 6.

Nawaz Sharif, 68, Maryam, 44, and Safdar, 54, were sentenced to 10 years, seven years and one year, respectively, in prison and fined in the Avenfield properties case.

The accused were also disqualified to contest elections or to hold public office for a period of 10 years after release. Both Maryam and Safdar are politicians. The accountability court verdict had ruined their political career.

Following the accountability court's judgment, the Sharifs filed separate petitions requesting the high court to suspend sentences and set aside the verdict.

The ruling by the Islamabad High Court comes just a week after Sharif's wife, Kulsoom Nawaz, died from cancer in London.

The trio were briefly allowed out of the high-security Adiala Jail on parole to attend her funeral. They returned to jail on Monday.

The two-judge bench also ordered the release of the former premier, his daughter and son-in-law from the Adiala jail in Rawalpindi.

Sharif, Maryam and Safdar were also directed to submit bail bonds worth Rs. 500,000.

According to jail officials, Nawaz, Maryam and Safdar will be released on Wednesday if the order is received prior to the expiration of lock-up time.

Quoting sources, Geo News reported that if the former premier, his daughter and son-in-law are released, they will be taken to Lahore via a special flight.

Pakistani media reported that the verdict would remain a temporary relief for the former prime minister and his family members until the court gives the final decision on their application seeking suspension of their conviction in the  Avenfield case.

Apart from the Avenfield case, the Sharifs face jail terms if they are convicted in two more corruption cases  related to Al-Azizia and Flagship cases.

The cases against the family stemmed from Panama Papers case in April 2016.

In a blow to Pakistan's anti-corruption watchdog, the Islamabad High Court also dismissed the National Accountability Bureau's request to first announce a judgment on the maintainability of the pleas. The bench also imposed a fine on the NAB lawyers earlier for using delaying tactics.

The NAB was also pulled up by the Supreme Court on Monday when it rejected its petition challenging the IHC's decision to hear Sharifs' petitions against the Avenfield verdict.

Chief Justice Saqib Nisar termed the NAB petition as frivolous and imposed a Rs. 20,000 fine on the anti-corruption watchdog.

Sharif resigned as Pakistan prime minister last year after the Supreme Court disqualified him from holding public office and ruled that graft cases be filed against the beleaguered leader and his children over the Panama Papers scandal.

The Avenfield case was among the three corruption cases filed against the three-time former premier and his children by the NAB on the Supreme Court's orders in the Panama Papers case which disqualified Sharif.

Sharif has denied any wrongdoing and says the charges are political motivated.

His supporters believe the real reason he was convicted was because he had fallen out with the country's powerful army.

Leader of the Opposition and Sharif's younger brother, Shahbaz, following the verdict, tweeted a Quranic verse to express gratitude on suspension of the sentences.

"Truth has come, and falsehood has departed. Indeed is falsehood, [by nature], ever bound to depart," he tweeted.

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News Network
November 18,2024

Advisors to US President-elect Donald Trump have instructed his allies and associates to refrain from using the inflammatory language they previously employed when discussing issues related to migrants and the deportation of asylum seekers, in a bid to avoid “looking like Nazis.”

US media reports said that Trump’s associates had been asked to stop using the word “camps” to describe potential facilities that would be used to accommodate migrants rounded up in deportation operations across the country.

The reports said the US president-elect’s allies had been ordered to stave off such charged terms as they would bring to mind “Nazis,” and be used against Trump.

“I have received some guidance to avoid terms, like ‘camps,’ that can be twisted and used against the president, yes,” one Trump ally told American monthly magazine Rolling Stone.

“Apparently, some people think it makes us look like Nazis.”

The presidential advisers also cautioned surrogates and allies to keep racist terms, which have dogged Trump’s campaign, out of their remarks.

They said with Trump’s heated rhetoric that used to compare undocumented immigrants to “animals” and his slight that they are “poisoning the blood of our country,” detractors did not need to reach too far to find parallels to Nazi Germany.

Stephen Miller, who Trump tapped to be his deputy chief of staff of policy, specifically used the word “camps” to describe holding facilities that he hoped the military could put together for immigrants.

Tom Homan, who served as the acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and is chosen by Trump to be in charge of the US borders, was no stranger to such language.

“It’s not gonna be a mass sweep of neighborhoods,” he said in an interview earlier this week. “It’s not gonna be building concentration camps. I’ve read it all. It’s ridiculous.”

Becoming a little more forthright about the new government’s aggressive deportation plans, Homan likened the early days of the Trump administration to the initial invasion of Iraq in 2003.

“I got three words for them – shock and awe,” he said. “You’re going to see us take this country back.”

Trump made immigration a central element of his 2024 presidential campaign but unlike his first run, which was mainly focused on building a border wall, he has shifted his attention to interior enforcement and the removal of undocumented immigrants already in the United States.

People close to the US president and his aides are laying the groundwork for expanding detention facilities to fulfill his mass deportation campaign promise.

The businessman-turned-politician deported more than 1.5 million people during his first term.

The figure do not include the millions of people turned away at the border under a Covid-era policy enacted by Trump and used during most of Biden’s term.

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News Network
November 7,2024

Udupi, Nov 7: In a tragic turn of events, a young woman, Prasanna, aged 29, allegedly died by suicide on Wednesday, struggling to cope with the demands of work and motherhood after the birth of her daughter, according to police reports.

Prasanna had married on December 2, 2022, and was the mother of a 10-month-old baby girl. Her husband works in Bengaluru, while she lived with her in-laws, who, according to her family, treated her kindly.

In a complaint, Prasanna's mother revealed that her daughter often called her, expressing deep concerns over her readiness for motherhood. Despite receiving supportive care from her family, Prasanna felt unprepared and overwhelmed by the balance of work and home life that early motherhood required.

Her family shared that she had been undergoing treatment, but between 10 a.m. and 1:45 p.m. on Wednesday, she allegedly took her own life at her husband’s residence. The Karkala Rural Police Station has registered a case and is conducting further investigations.

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News Network
November 7,2024

lebanon.jpg

The Israeli regime has killed at least 40 people during new airstrikes against eastern Lebanese areas, besides targeting the country’s capital Beirut with fresh acts of aggression.

Lebanon’s health ministry announced the fatalities on Wednesday, saying 53 other people had also been wounded during the aerial attacks that targeted the country’s Bekaa Valley, including the city of Baalbek.

In early Thursday, the regime was also reported to have attacked Beirut’s southern suburbs, including a site adjacent to Rafiq Hariri International Airport.

The attacks came after the regime issued short-notice evacuation orders apparently directed at the residents of the areas, claiming that the areas contained facilities belonging to Lebanon’s Hezbollah resistance movement.

Tel Aviv has been using similar claims on countless occasions since last October, when it markedly intensified its deadly acts of aggression against Lebanon, in order to try to justify the escalation. Hezbollah has, however, invariably refuted the claims.

Also on Wednesday, the United Nations warned in its most recent flash report on the humanitarian crisis caused by the Israeli atrocities targeting Lebanon that the aggression had “reached a critical point.”

The attacks have claimed the lives of more than 3,000 people, which was “58 percent more than the 1,900 fatalities” that were caused by the regime’s 2006 war against Lebanon, the report said.

“Additionally, an estimated 1.3 million people have been displaced, both within Lebanon and into neighboring countries, 33 percent more than the number of people displaced in 2006,” it added.

Women comprised the majority of those who had been rendered homeless within Lebanon as a result of the Israeli attacks, the report noted.

It also regretted that the Israeli attacks had featured 78 assaults on healthcare facilities across the country that had claimed the lives of 130 health workers and injured 111 others.

In response to the aggression, Hezbollah has been staging hundreds of retaliatory strikes against the occupied Palestinian territories and the Israeli forces trying to advance on southern Lebanese areas.

The movement has vowed to sustain its strikes until the regime ends the escalation.

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