My accounts are clean, money laundering case bogus, says Shehbaz

A banking court in Lahore has extended the bail of PML-N President Shehbaz Sharif and his son Hamza Shehbaz till Dec 11 in the money laundering case as the Federal Investigation Agency has failed to submit challan in the court, reported 24NewsHD TV channel.

Judge Sardar Tahir Sabir of the banking court heard the petitions of interim bails of Shehbaz and Hamza in the fake accounts case on Saturday.

The PML-N president told the court that in his capacity as chief minister Punjab, he never did anything illegal. He said it was his children’s business, he had nothing to do with this.

“Contrary to the FIA claim, my children’s business was suffered due to my decisions. Today, the FIA is accusing me of money laundering and involving me in the Benami cases. If I had to do this, why did I incur a loss of billions of rupees to my family’s business,” he added.

He said he did not accept the demands of sugar mills owners.

The court wondered whether it was related to the case.

Shehbaz answered in affirmative, saying he was accused of doing the Benami business. He said the government gave a subsidy of Rs10 on per-kilo sugarcane. The Sindh government had offered another Rs9 subsidy on per kg sugarcane but I refused, he added.

He said he levied an excise duty amounting to Rs2/per meter on Shera ethanol but the mill owners went to the court. He said the government in this way had collected Rs2.5 billion from the ethanol duty. But now the government has taken back the ethanol duty. You can see what kind of decisions I had made, he added.

The FIA counsel said that it was not the ethanol case, rather it was a money laundering case.

Shehbaz held that there was nothing in his accounts, all accusations were wrong. He said the accountability court was hearing same kind of case against him.

During the hearing, the FIA could not submit challan against Shehbaz and Hamza and sought from the court three more weeks for the submission. The court, accepting the request adjourned the case till Dec 11.

While talking to media outside the court, Shehbaz’s lawyer Ata Tarar said that the court had been hearing money laundering case against the PML-N president and his son for almost 1 ½ years but the interior ministry had failed to provide any proof in the court. He was of the view that Prime Minister Imran Khan was being made fool by Accountability Advisor Shahzad Akbar.

He said as per the law, the FIA had to submit challan in the court within 14 days, but it couldn’t do so and on every hearing it was asking for three weeks’ more time. He said the cases had been lingering for 1 ½ years, adding that the FIA could submit challan only when it only had in possession of any proof. He said with his decisions, Shehbaz incurred a loss of billions of rupees to his sugar mills but his decisions proved beneficial for the country and the country raked in billions instead.

Reporter Jamalud din Jamali