Pakistan judge 'blackmailed' into issuing verdict against Sharif: Maryam Nawaz

Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz leader Maryam Nawaz has released a video clip purportedly showing an accountability court judge allegedly confessing that he was “blackmailed and forced” to convict former premier Nawaz Sharif in a corruption case. Maryam claimed Accountability Court Islamabad Judge Arshad Malik, who sentenced Sharif to a seven-year imprisonment in the Al-Azizia corruption case, confessed in his conversation with PML-N supporter Nasir Butt that he was “blackmailed and forced (by hidden forces)” to give verdict against the former premier.

Sharif, 69, has been serving a seven-year prison term at the Kot Lakhpat Jail in Lahore since December 24, 2018 when an accountability court convicted him in one of the three corruption cases filed in the wake of the apex court’s July 28, 2017 order in Panama Papers case. In May, the apex court rejected his review petition seeking bail on medical grounds and permission to go abroad for medical treatment.

Earlier, Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan had said the incarcerated former premier Nawaz Sharif tried to secure his release with the help of two friendly countries. Not revealing the names of the nations, Khan said that they just conveyed him the message but did not press for Sharif’s release. “They told me that we will not interfere,” said Khan.

Last week, Pakistan's anti-corruption body arrested jailed former president Asif Ali Zardari in a corruption case. He is already in the custody of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) in a multi-million-dollar money laundering case along with his sister. According to the NAB, the duo made transactions of Rs 150 million through alleged fake bank accounts.

The 63-year-old co-chairman of the Opposition Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and husband of the country's first woman prime minister Benazir Bhutto was this time arrested in the Park Lane case which is related to the alleged properties in London.