Nawaz pleads not guilty

The disqualified Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Wednesday said that "bias" and "anger" of judges against him turned into words in the Supreme Court's detailed judgment in the review petitions filed against the Panama Papers case verdict. Sharif said this while talking to reporters after the Accountability Court formally indicted him. The court also rejected his plea seeking clubbing of three graft references filed against him by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) and adjourned hearing ?till November 15.?
Before the media talk, Sharif asked his staff to let Maryam Nawaz, his daughter, come to the front and then she accompanied him during the talk. The court on Tuesday last reserved the decision in the plea, which had earlier been rejected by same court but was re-heard on the orders of the Islamabad High Court.
Sharif said that he already knew that the Supreme Court verdict in review petition filed by him would never come in his favour. "These judges are full of grudge and their anger and bias turned into their words in the detailed judgment of review petition filed against the Panama Papers case verdict issued by the apex court on November 7," he said, adding that the judgment clearly shows bias of judges.
He further said that he believes all this "grudge, anger as well as words" will become a dark chapter of history. The judiciary during the last 70 years had penned in several dark chapters. He said such types of verdicts were also delivered during the dictatorial regimes and they have been written in "dark" letters as well.
Earlier in the court, Sharif was called to the rostrum after rejection of his petition and the judge read out the charges against him. The disqualified Prime Minister was formally indicted separately in the three references.
The former Prime Minister pleaded not guilty to all the charges. Sharif said he was deprived of his fundamental rights of a fair trial under Article 10-A. The cases made against him were malafide and politically motivated, he said. Sharif expressed his concern at the rostrum that since the apex court had given a six-month time to the Accountability Court to decide references against him, which means each case would get just 1.5 months. To this, the judge said that the cases would be concluded within the timeframe if heard simultaneously.
The judge asked the former Prime Minister if he has received copies of the indictment, and Sharif nodded in the affirmative. He also signed the copies of the indictment. The court revived summons for the prosecution witnesses including Sidra Mansoor of the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) and Jahangir Ahmed of Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) and asked them to appear before the court on next hearing.
Earlier, the court while taking up Maryam and Safdar's plea pertaining to removal of the Calibri font reference in their indictment, partially accepted their plea and ruled that the overall paragraph related to the Calibri font will remain in the indictment but ordered the removal of NAB law's section 3-A of schedule which lists punishment for the alleged crime.
The judge announced the judgment in this regard after hearing the arguments of NAB prosecutor as well as Maryam's and Safdar's counsel Amjad Pervez. In the previous hearing, Maryam and Safdar had filed an application seeking a change in their indictment on grounds that their charge-sheet mentions submission of a "false" document [wherein the Calibri font was used].
The application pleaded that the document cannot be considered false as the Supreme Court, in the Panama Papers case judgment, had directed the trial court to first establish whether false documents were submitted and then take an appropriate action. The judge observed that the issue related to calibri font will be taken up after rest of references are concluded.