LAHORE:
Former premier Nawaz Sharif and his daughter Maryam Nawaz were taken into custody by National Accountability Bureau (NAB) officials shortly after arriving at Lahore’s Allama Iqbal International Airport on Friday night.
They were subsequently boarded onto a small chartered plane bound for Islamabad International Airport (IIA).
The flight landed in Islamabad around 10.30pm. Meanwhile, a NAB prosecution team headed to the accountability courts to seek a judicial warrant for arrest.
Nawaz and Maryam had taken off from Abu Dhabi for Lahore shortly after 6pm PST on the last leg of their journey home from London.
Their flight, Etihad Airways flight EY243, was earlier scheduled to land at 6:15pm PST at Lahore’s Allama Iqbal International Airport, but suffered a nearly three-hour delay.
An airport official, when approached by our correspondent, had stated the reason for the hold-up in Abu Dhabi as a delay in an Etihad flight arriving from Bangkok, which was supposed to fly EY243’s passengers to Lahore.
The flight eventually took off at nearly 6pm PST and landed in Lahore at 8.45pm.
According to media reports, dozens of security officials entered the plane after it landed and asked other passengers to leave. The duo’s passports were seized by a three-member Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) team. Their immigration formalities were completed on board the plane.
The two were taken into custody at around 9:25pm and put on the plane to Islamabad.
Nawaz and Maryam were convicted by an accountability court in the Avenfield corruption reference last Friday and handed jail sentences of 10 years and seven years, respectively. The former was found guilty of owning assets beyond known income, while his daughter was convicted for aiding and abetting her father in covering up a “conspiracy”.
After the verdict was announced, Nawaz and Maryam had said they would return to Pakistan and appeal against the decision.
The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) and Punjab governments had made arrangements to take the father-daughter duo into custody upon arrival and shift them to Adiala Jail, where they are supposed to serve their jail term. Agencies