Sharif’s family meets him in Kot Lakhpat Jail

Lahore: The family of deposed Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif met him at the Kot Lakhpat Jail on Thursday. Nawaz Sharif’s mother, his daughter Maryam Nawaz and other family members including Hamza Shehbaz visited the ex-premier at the jail amid tight security. Former premier Nawaz Sharif’s daughter Maryam Nawaz took to Twitter after visiting him at the Kot Lakhpat Jail in Lahore on  Thursday and informed her party’s supporters about his well being and ‘high spirits’. She remarked that her father was thankful to his party’s workers and well wishers for supporting and believing in him. “Just came out of Kotlakhpat jail. MNS (Mian Nawaz Sharif) was fine and Alhamdolillah (by the grace of God) in high spirits. Thank you everyone for your prayers, unflinching support & good wishes. God bless you all,” she tweeted. Besides, her husband Mohammed Safdar, Hamza Shahbaz and other family members also met the elder Sharif in his barracks. The Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) head was jailed on December 24 after being taken into custody by police following an accountabilitycourt judgment in Al-Azizia reference case. Accountability court judge Mohammed Arshad Malik sentenced Sharif to seven years in prison and ordered him to pay $25million and Rs1.5 billion in the Al-Azizia case. The former premier was arrested by a National Accountability Bureau team soon after the verdict was announced. He was supposed to be moved to Rawalpindi’s Adiala prison but was transferred to Lahore after his counsel requested the court to move him to the city on medical grounds. The judge on December 21 rejected an application by Sharif’s lawyer Khawaja Haris to defer the judgment. Sharif, 67, resigned in July 2017 after the Supreme Court disqualified him from holding office over an undeclared source of income. He served as prime minister twice in the 1990s before he himself was ousted in a 1999 coup leading to a decade of exile. He won a third term as prime minister in a 2013 election. Last year on July 6, 2018, an accountability court sentenced Nawaz Sharif to a total of 10 years in prison and directed him to pay a fine of  £8 million after finding him guilty on different charges in the Avenfield properties case. The Avenfield reference is among four corruption references filed against former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, his three children and former finance minister Ishaq Dar in compliance with the July 2017 Supreme Court verdict in the Panama Papers case.