Leader of the Opposition in National Assembly and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) President Shehbaz Sharif Friday skipped National Accountability Bureau (NAB) hearing due to coronavirus situation in the country, a private TV channel reported.
According to PML-N’s spokesperson Attaullah Tarar, Sharif is a cancer survivor and his health does not permit him to appear before the corruption watchdog amid the current situation of coronavirus.
The anti-graft body had summoned the PML-N leader in a money laundering case and had asked him to submit bank details along with the loan taken from Barclays bank between 2005 to 2007. “A complete detail of your foreign assets along with the year of acquisition/disposal and source of personal/bank loans along with details of loan repayment and current outstanding loan should be provided,” reads a questionnaire sent to Shehbaz Sharif.
In response to the summons, Tarar maintained that Sharif has submitted his written reply to NAB in this regard, adding that the opposition leader was earlier detained for 130 days out of which he spent 61 days under NAB custody where he was interrogated in detail.
In a reply submitted to the bureau, Shehbaz said he had been questioned ‘at great length about his entire career and assets while in NAB’s custody on physical remand and furnished whatever information was sought and was available’. “All call up notices were replied [to] within the [given] time and full cooperation was extended, including personal appearances,” he said.
Shehbaz said ‘it was unfortunate that the call up notice described the replies as unsatisfactory, incomplete and evasive’. He said all his assets were on record and he had been regularly updating the concerned authorities about his assets, adding that the data required by NAB is also unavailable due to the lockdown.
In 2018, medical experts had said that years ago, Shehbaz was treated for appendicular adenocarcinoma (a cancerous tumour). According to his medical reports that had surfaced at the time, Shehbaz was said to be suffering from a kidney infection, a lymph node in his chest and had chances of his cancer resurfacing.
