- Wednesday, May 08, 2024
By: Keerthi Mohan
Pakistan’s former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, who is currently serving a seven-year jail term in Lahore’s Kot Lakhpat jail in the Al-Azizia Steel Mills graft case, has been denied a prisoner who could serve as his orderly.
Sharif is entitled to better facilities and an orderly as he is a former prime minister. But the Punjab province government on Wednesday (2) said Sharif will have to maintain his room on his own, reported Dawn.
Punjab’s Inspector General of Prisons Shahid Saleem Beg said that “Nawaz Sharif has been asked to maintain his room” to serve out the seven-year “rigorous” imprisonment handed down to him in the Al-Azizia Steel Mills/Hill Metal Establishment reference.
The prisons chief also said that because of the sensitive nature of Sharif’s case he could not be allowed to go outside his barracks in the prison.
Three cases – the Avenfield properties case, Flagship investment case and Al-Azizia steel mills case – were launched against Sharif and his family by Pakistan’s National Accountability Bureau on September 8, 2017. On December 24, an anti-corruption court in Pakistan sentenced the ousted premier to seven years in jail in the Al-Azizia Steel Mills graft case but acquitted him in the Flagship Investments case.
In July, Sharif was convicted and sentenced to 10 years in the Avenfield case.
Meanwhile, Sharif’s legal team said they would challenge his conviction in the Al-Azizia Steel Mills case.
“We have almost finalised the draft appeal against the verdict (against Sharif) and will file it in the Islamabad High court this week,” Sharif’s lawyer Khwaja Haris told PTI.
“We are hopeful to get relief from the high court as there are many loopholes in the judgment of the accountability court.”
