September 05, 2008	Friday	Ramazan 04, 1429

RAWALPINDI, Sept 4: A special judge here on Thursday put off hearing till October 7 in the application of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) to reopen three corruption references against PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif and his family

After the court proceedings NAB special prosecutor Abdul Baseer Qureshi, while talking to mediapersons, said the bureau had not moved any application for reopening of cases against the Sharif family. He said the accountability court did not adjourn sine die the cases on August 21 and the proceedings before the Special Judge Central (SJC) were in continuity after the cases were reopened in August 2007.

It may be mentioned here that the Accountability Court IV Judge Chaudhry Khalid Mehmood adjourned the three cases -- Hudaibia Paper Mills, Ittefaq Foundry and Raiwind Assets -- sine die on August 21 stating that the application of NAB was not duly signed by the bureau’s chairman. The court decision was widely reported by the media but was not denied by NAB and its lawyers.

The corruption references were filed by the NAB chairman on July 15, 2000. In Hudaibia Paper Mills case, besides Nawaz Sharif, the other co-accused were Shahbaz Sharif, Abbas Sharif, Hussain Nawaz, Hamza Shahbaz, Haroon Pasha and Senator Ishaq Dar. The accused were charged with securing huge amount as loan in the name of Hudaibia Paper Mills and later used the loan for some other purpose, thus causing huge loss to the national exchequer.

In Ittefaq Foundry Reference, Nawaz Sharif, Abbas Sharif, Mukhtar Hassan, Kamal Qureshi and a couple of other persons were accused of securing loans and then misusing them, which inflicted a loss of millions to the national exchequer.

Similarly in the assets reference the accused include Nawaz Sharif, Shahbaz Sharif, their late father Mian Sharif, mother Shamim Akhtar and other family members.

In the reference they were charged with accumulating assets beyond their declared means of income by allegedly misusing their authority.