Suleman Shehbaz, the son of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, was granted a 14-day protective bail by the Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Tuesday in the money-laundering case.
As soon as Chief Justice Aamer Farooq took up Suleman’s petition for bail in the case, he turned himself in before the high court. After the IHC prohibited the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) and the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) from detaining him in the case, he returned to Pakistan on December 11, ending his four-year exile in London.
Suleman has been living in London since 2018 when, in advance of the general election, the NAB and the FIA filed numerous cases against him, and he left Pakistan after attending a few hearings.He had been listed as a fugitive because he had skipped court appearances.
Suleman attacked former prime minister Imran Khan in a media interview outside the high court for political victimisation of the Sharif family and PML-N lawmakers. He claimed Mr. Khan had ordered Shahzad Akbar to come to the UK in order to include the Sharif family in false court procedures.
Additionally, he accused the PTI leader of coercing retired Justice Javed Iqbal, a former NAB chairman, into signing a document that would have tightened the noose around the opposition parties at the time.
He also made fun of Mr. Khan for selling an expensive watch he received as a gift from the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, and accused Mr. Khan of massive corruption throughout his tenure. He asserted that responsibility for the misuse of the chopper owned by the chief minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa lay with the PTI leader.
