Shahbaz’s guarantee questionable
after earlier role as guarantor: Fawad
Staff Reporter Islamabad
Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry announced on Sunday that the government will appeal against the Lahore High Court’s decision, allowing Pakistan Muslim League-N President Shehbaz Sharif to fly abroad.
The federal minister, while addressing a press conference in Islamabad along with Adviser to PM on Accountability and Interior Shahzad Akbar, said that the government had its options open regarding the verdict.
“The way Shehbaz Sharif was allowed to leave Pakistan is a reflection of our dilapidated system,” Fawad said while referring to how notices seeking the removal of his name were issued the same day as the case was heard.
This, the minister added, was the system the ruling government was fighting against and will continue to fight.
“Allowing Shehbaz to leave is tantamount to acknowledging the prevalent class system [in the country], as other prisoners don’t enjoy the privilege of receiving treatment abroad.
It gives rise to the impression that elites can set themselves free while the poor languish in jails,” the information minister stated.
He added that these kinds of special allowances could destroy a society, calling for there to be one law for all.
Fawad further stated that, “We respect the decisions of the court but we have our legal options open, and we will exercise our right to appeal.”
He stated that the PML-N president should have been asked as to how his guarantee could be accepted when the person [Nawaz Sharif] he was a guarantor for hasn’t yet returned.
Speaking on the occasion, Shahzad Akbar said that the court wasn’t properly assisted in the case. “We will appeal against the decision,” he added.
“The PML-N is misguiding the public, but the evidence against them is documented and it won’t go away,” Akbar said.
Fawad wondered how the government could trust PML-N president Shehbaz Sharif’s guarantee to return to the country when he hadn’t been able to fulfil the same assurance for his brother PML-N supremo Nawaz Sharif.
He said: “The question is how can Shehbaz Sharif’s guarantee [to return] be accepted when he couldn’t fulfil another absconder’s guarantee?
“When he was giving Nawaz’s guarantee, we had the hope at the time that NAB (National Accountability Bureau) and the court would call him and ask that he had given guarantee for Nawaz and had to come back with him so where has he (Nawaz) gone?”
