In a 37-year-old case involving him allegedly transferring a "precious state land" to one of the country's leading media house owners as a "bribe," a Pakistani court acquitted former prime minister Nawaz Sharif on Saturday.
The court's decision came just a few days after the federal government led by Nawaz Sharif's younger brother, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, made important changes to laws to lift the lifetime ban on politicians.
The Supreme Court disqualified Nawaz Sharif in 2017. After a decision by the Supreme Court in the Panama Papers case in 2018, he lost his right to hold public office for the rest of his life.
"An Accountability Court in Lahore acquitted three-time premier Nawaz Sharif in a case related to illegal transfer of 54-kanal (6.75 acres) precious state land to Jang/Geo media group owner Mir Shakil-ur-Rehman in Lahore while he was the chief minister of Punjab 37 years ago," a court official told PTI.
"Judge Rao Abdul Jabbar acquitted him after the country's anti-graft body (National Accountability Bureau) informed the court that after recent amendments to its law (by the Shehbaz Sharif-led coalition government), the case does not fall in its preview," the official said.
The court has currently cleared Mir Shakil-ur-Rehman in this case.
In a previous charge sheet, NAB said that Nawaz Sharif, who was also chairman of the Lahore Development Authority (LDA) in 1986, had approved the exemption of 54 valuable plots each measuring one kanal in a single block (compact form) at canal bank H- Block of M A Jauhar Town, Lahore. This was done to benefit Rehman in an undue way.
Since November 2019, Nawaz Sharif, the supreme leader of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), has lived in self-exile in the United Kingdom.
Sharif was serving a seven-year prison sentence in the Al-Azizia Mills corruption case when he left for London on a four-wheel bail granted by the Lahore High Court for medical reasons.
Imran Khan, the leader of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and the former prime minister of Pakistan, claimed that former army chief Gen. Qamar Javed Bajwa had manipulated Sharif's release from jail and later made a deal with him.
When the date for the general elections is announced, the PML-N asserts that its supreme leader will return to Pakistan.
After the country's current government's term expires on August 13, elections are scheduled for October.
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