Court summons Pak PM, his son

A special court in Lahore yesterday summoned Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and his son Hamza Shehbaz on September 7 for the framing of charges in a Rs16 billion money laundering case registered against them by the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA).

They have already been granted pre-arrest bails in the case.

The FIA had booked Shehbaz and his sons Hamza and Suleman in November 2020 under sections 419, 420, 468, 471, 34 and 109 of Prevention of Corruption Act and r/w 3/4 of Anti Money Laundering Act. Suleman Shehbaz is in the UK and has been declared an absconder.

Fourteen others have also been named in the FIR under sections 5(2) and 5(3) (criminal misconduct) of the Prevention of Corruption Act.

Shehbaz and Hamza were previously set to be indicted on May 14 but it was deferred as the prime minister was not present in the country at the time.

The FIA had in December 2021 submitted the challan against Shehbaz and Hamza to a special court for their alleged involvement in laundering an amount of Rs16 billion in the sugar scam case.

"The investigation team has detected 28 benami accounts of the Shehbaz family through which money laundering of Rs16.3bn was committed during 2008-18. The FIA examined the money trail of 17,000 credit transactions," according to an FIA report submitted to the court.