LAHORE: An accountability court here on Friday granted interim pre-arrest bail to Suleman Shehbaz, youn­ger son of Prime Min­is­ter Shehbaz Sharif, in a mo­­ney laundering reference filed by the National Accou­ntability Bureau (NAB).

Suleman along with his legal team appeared before the court. The court allowed the bail to Suleman till Jan 7 subject to furnishing of sure­­ty bonds and directed him to join the NAB investigation.

Later, Suleman also appe­ared before a special court (Central-I) for pre-arrest bail in a money laundering case lodged by the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA).

The court granted bail to Suleman till Jan 7 with a direction to join the investigation before the FIA.

PM Shehbaz’s son Sulem­­an, daughter Rabia Imran and son-in-law Haroon You­saf were declared absconders by the court for avoiding their appearance in the proceedings.

Suleman recently ended his self-exile and returned to the country after securing an interim protective bail from the Islamabad High Court.

In its money laundering reference, NAB alleged that the family members and benamidars of PM Shehbaz received fake foreign remittances of billions of rupees in their personal bank acco­unts. In the FIA case, PM Shehbaz and his son Hamza have been acquitted by a trial court.

Published in Dawn, December 24th, 2022