Assets beyond means case: NAB summons Hamza Shahbaz on April 10

 F.P. Report

LAHORE: The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has summoned Leader of Opposition in Punjab Assembly Hamza Shahbaz on April 10 in an ongoing investigation into assets beyond known sources of income and money laundering case against him, on Monday.

Earlier in the day, the Lahore High Court (LHC) stopped the NAB from arresting Hamza Shahbaz for investigation into the same case by granting him pre-arrest bail till April 17 and directed the NAB to submit its response on the matter.

A two-member bench of LHC comprising Justice Malik Shehzad and Justice Waqas Rauf heard the case.

As the hearing resumed, the court asked NAB’s prosecutor, “In which case the bureau wills to arrest Hamza?”

To which, the prosecutor told the court that there were three cases against Hamza; including assets beyond known sources of income, Saaf Pani and Ramzan Sugar Mills cases. However, arrest warrants have not been issued yet in Saaf Pani and Ramzan Sugar Mills cases.

Earlier on Saturday, the LHC had barred the bureau from arresting Hamza while giving him a protective bail till April 8 after he had filed a pre-arrest bail plea on the same day.

In the petition, Hamza had claimed that NAB’s team had carried out a raid at his residence without a prior notice while the LHC has instructed officials to give a prior notice before his arrest.

The plea further pleaded with the court for suspending the arrest warrants and an action against the NAB for “contempt of court”.

A team of the NAB swooped on the 96-H house, believed to be Shehbaz Sharif’s residence, allegedly because Hamza Shehbaz was “not cooperating” in the ongoing investigation in the case.

NAB sources revealed that Hamza Shahbaz had declared property worth 2 crore in 2003 while his assets grew 2,000 percent during the PML-N’s tenure of the government. The opposition leader had allegedly laundered Rs85 billion. Officials revealed that they had already detained several facilitators of the Sharif family in the same case.