Video proved genuine, Nawaz’ sentence void now: PML-N

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leaders Maryam Nawaz and Shahbaz Sharif have requested the higher judiciary to declare former prime minister Nawaz Sharif’s sentence null and void as they claimed that the video of accountability court judge Arshad Malik has proven genuine.

Shahbaz Sharif said that after the removal of Arshad Malik from the post, keeping Nawaz Sharif imprisoned is not the right decision.

Maryam Nawaz in a tweet said that she is looking towards the judiciary for justice and she humbly requests the higher judiciary to nullify the sentence. She said that Nawaz Sharif should be released from prison without any delay and this issue is no longer confined to Nawaz Sharif only.

“Thanks to Almighty Allah, the judiciary accepted the facts but the matter is not suspending the judge of the decision, which had given. The matter is not of removal of the judge but of deleting the verdict from the judicial record which the judge announced in pressure,” she said.

Maryam said the removal of the judge clearly means that the honourable judiciary has accepted the facts and if this was a case then how the decision was being maintained which the judge has given.

Maryam Nawaz said if the Judge who pronounced the judgment was being removed then why innocent Nawaz Sharif was not being released. She said if the judge was removed on the basis of his misconduct then why the punishment was given to a person who become the victim of the misconduct.

Meanwhile, the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Secretary General Farhatullah Babar said the party Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari has already stated that it is for the Supreme Court to look into the matter.

“An important question that needs to be addressed is the status of the verdict given by Judge Arshad Malik in the case after he has been removed from his position on account of disclosures made in the tape,” he said.

Farhatullah Babar said two decades ago Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto was also convicted by an LHC judge but when incriminating tapes surfaced showing the judge had been pressurised the Supreme Court remanded the case back to trial court observing that “ bias of the trial judge floated on the surface of record”.

He said the trial judge in that case resigned from the bench. Contrary to expectations, he was not proceeded against in the Supreme Judicial Council for misconduct. “Hope that the SC taking notice will take the jurisprudence forward in the right direction,” he said.

Meanwhile, in his tweet, Farhatullah Babar said when the judiciary is involved it’s best not to lend ears to conspiracy theories. “Reject therefore the conspiracy theory that the judge removal will be followed by providing some relief to Nawaz Sharif and pulling a thick curtain on the saga to hide macabre skeletons,” he tweeted.