Pakistan: Court dismisses ex-PM Sharif 's petition

By Aamir Latif
KARACHI, Pakistan (AA) Pakistan' s Supreme Court on Thursday rejected former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's appeal for combined court cases stemming from the whistleblower Panama Papers scandal, his lawyer said.
Chief Justice Supreme Court, Saqib Nisar heard and rejected Sharif's appeal on the ground that the three-time premier had already used his right to appeal in the Panama Papers case in August this year, his lawyer Khawaja Haris told reporters.
Haris who is also defending Sharif in three corruption cases, said the chief justice should have heard the appeal in the open court rather than in his chamber.
Sharif filed an appeal against the verdict of an anti-corruption court earlier this month, which rejected his petition for combining all ongoing corruption cases against him and his family members.
The anti -corruption court Islamabad, is trying Sharif, his daughter and son-in-law in three corruption cases.
The Sharif family has time and again rejected the corruption charges against them accusing the courts of conducting proceedings in an "unjust" and " one-sided" manner.
A five-member bench of the Supreme Court ousted the former premier from the office on July 28 in Panama Papers case. The court found that Sharif had acted in an untrustworthy manner by failing to declare a salary from his son’s Dubai-based company ahead of the 2013 elections.
The same bench also rejected Sharif's review petition against it verdict in August.
The apex court had also ordered the country’s anti-corruption watchdog National Accountability Bureau (NAB) to open several cases against him, his children, son-in-law and finance minister Ishaq Dar.
Sharif's British-national children -- Hassan and Hussain -- have already been declared absconders in the said cases for skipping the proceedings.The ruling Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz group) party leaders say that they will not appear before the court to face the graft cases as Pakistan's laws do not apply to them.
According to evidence submitted by the National Accountability Bureau, the Sharifs have four posh London apartments, two steel mills in Saudi Arabia and several offshore companies in the United Kingdom.
The April 2016 Panama Papers revealed that three of Sharif’s children owned offshore assets not shown on his family's wealth statement, including luxury apartments in London.