Islamabad: In the latest video released on Saturday by Maryam Nawaz, the daughter of imprisoned former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, where accountability court judge Arshad Malik allegedly admitted to the lack of evidence against the deposed leader in the December 24 Al-Azizia Steel Mills reference.
The video clip, played at the joint press conference addressed by senior PML-N leaders, purportedly showed the accountability court judge speaking to a PML-N worker named Nasir Butt and claiming that he was coerced to hand down the prison sentence to Sharif despite there being no proof of corruption against the deposed premier, The Express Tribune reported.
“No evidence that a single penny has been shifted from Pakistan. No evidence of shifting any money by accused from Pakistan,” Maryam translated the judge as saying from the video.
“No evidence of any embezzlement of funds by Hussain in Pakistan or Saudi Arabia,” she further quoted the judge from the video.
“No link between Nawaz and the properties in London,” Maryam quoted judge Malik as saying.
The judge was “blackmailed” into handing down the sentence against Sharif after some people threatened that they would release a private video of his, Maryam alleged.
She added that the judge did not write the sentence but “was made to write” the prison sentence for her embattled father who is currently serving seven-year-sentence in Lahore’s Kot Lakhpat jail.
Maryam also claimed that the judge was under immense pressure to send the former prime minister to jail, and that he had contemplated committing suicide several times since.
Speaking at the press conference, she termed the alleged video “divine intervention” which had arrived to help her father at a time when he had given up hopes of getting justice from the courts.
She further hoped that the Supreme Court would take notice of this ‘evidence’ and urged that her father should be respectfully acquitted from the courts.
[source_without_link]ANI[/source_without_link]