LAHORE: Suleman Shehbaz, younger son of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, on Monday withdrew his bail petition in a money laundering reference by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) after a prosecutor told the trial court that the arrest of the suspect was not required at present.

Suleman appeared before an accountability court along with his counsel Amjad Parvez.

PM Shehbaz’s son-in-law Haroon Yousaf also appeared before the court on expiry of his pre-arrest bail petition.

At the outset, the prosecutor of the NAB told the court that the arrest warrants earlier issued against Suleman stood infructuous after the new amendments in the National Accountability Ordinance 1999.

Advocate Parvez explained to the court that previously the NAB was empowered to issue arrest warrants at the inquiry level while under the new law the warrants could be issued at the investigation stage.

The prosecutor maintained that the arrest of Suleman was not required at this stage. He pointed out that the suspect had not answered a questionnaire handed over to him by the bureau.

However, Suleman’s counsel told the court that a response to the questionnaire had been submitted to the bureau.

The court disposed of the pre-arrest bail petition of Suleman as withdrawn and sought a reply from the NAB on the bail matter of Yousaf.

The court also extended the pre-arrest bail of Yousaf till Feb 7.

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

Suleman and Yousaf recently ended their self-exile and returned to the country after securing protective bails from the courts.

In this reference, the NAB alleged that the family members and benamidars of PM Shehbaz received fake foreign remittances of billions in their personal bank accounts.

In addition to these remittances, the bureau said, billions of rupees were laundered by way of foreign pay orders, which were deposited with personal bank accounts of his sons Hamza and Suleman.

PM Shehbaz, his elder son Hamza, daughter Javeria Ali have been indicted in the reference besides other accused persons including Fazal Dad Abbasi, Rashid Karamat, Muhammad Usman, Masroor Anwar, Nisar Ahmad, Shoaib Qamar and Qasim Qayum.

Shehbaz’s wife Nusrat has been indicted through a pleader as she is out of the country.

Last week, the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) gave a clean chit to Suleman in a case of money laundering. The agency told the trial court that it found no evidence to establish the charges of committing money laundering and receiving kickbacks against Suleman.

The trial court would pass its decision on the agency’s report on Feb 2.

Published in Dawn, January 24th, 2023