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ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Bar Council (PBC) intends to meet former prime minister Nawaz Sharif in Rawalpindi’s Adiala jail as an observer to have first-hand knowledge about the conditions he is living in.
In a letter sent to the registrar of the accountability court of Islamabad and the superintendent of Adiala jail, PBC vice chairman Kamran Murtaza has sought permission for a meeting with the deposed prime minister at 11.30am on Wednesday. But the authorities concerned granted permission to a five-member delegation of the council to meet Mr Sharif at 11.30am on Thursday, Mr Murtaza said while talking to Dawn.
The delegation comprises Kamran Murtaza, former presidents of the Supreme Court Bar Association Abdul Lateef Afridi and Muhammad Yasin Azad, PBC member Azam Nazeer Tarar and Sindh High Court Bar Association ex-president Khalid Javed.
The delegation, Mr Murtaza said, would try to examine under which condition the former prime minister had been detained and learn if he was facing issues relating to the appeal he had filed in the Islamabad High Court against his conviction by the accountability court.
Azam Tarar said the PBC intended to meet the former prime minister as an observer to ensure that the latter received fair trial, got normal jail facilities and his basic legal rights were not compromised.
“We have strong reservations over the jail trial because we believe that he is not a terrorist rather convicted of a white-collar crime and, therefore, he should not be treated like a hardened criminal,” he said.
The accountability court had on July 6 sentenced Mr Sharif to 10 years, his daughter Maryam Nawaz to seven years and son-in-law retired Capt Muhammad Safdar to one year in prison in the Avenfield properties reference.
Former SCBA president Yasin Azad said he wanted to meet Mr Sharif before flying to Saudi Arabia on Aug 1 to perform Haj, adding that he believed that time would soon come when whatever narrative the ex-premier had built would be acknowledged by other political parties.
He said the delegation would also discuss the pros and cons of the verdict handed down by the trial court since “we believe that the order of the accountability was very weak”.
Mr Azad also deplored the jail trial of Mr Sharif in other corruption references and said it should be held on the trial court’s premises.
On Saturday, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz president and former chief minister of Punjab Shahbaz Sharif, along with his mother and other family members, had visited Mr Sharif, Maryam and Capt Safdar inside the room of the jail superintendent. Other members of the Sharif family included Maryam’s daughter Meharun Nisa and Shahbaz Sharif’s son Hamza Shahbaz.
The meeting had been arranged on a special permission of the government. Mr Sharif also had a meeting with his legal team including Saad Hashmi and Zafar Khan on Saturday.
Published in Dawn, July 18th, 2018
