Nawaz Sharif was disqualified by Pakistan's Supreme Court in haste, the ousted prime minister's daughter and PML-N party leader Maryam Nawaz has said while maintaining that the ruling amounted to murder of justice.
Sharif has been indicted by an anti-graft court in three cases of corruption related to his investments abroad and in other offshore companies. The cases were registered after the Supreme Court disqualified the 67-year-old as prime minister on July 28 in the Panama Papers scandal.
Maryam, said to be groomed by Sharif as his political heir, told Geo News that her father, who was re-elected recently as the President of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, has been disqualified but not discredited, despite many attempts by their enemies. But 44-year-old said that she does not understand the dynamics of getting justice in the country.
"If you criticise, then you won't get justice, but if you don't criticise then you will get justice? What is the standard of justice," she asked. "Our point of view is that there lies anger on the other side and the verdict [disqualification of Sharif] was announced in haste."
Sharif, who returned to Pakistan from London today, is set to appear before an anti-graft court tomorrow in the corruption cases spiralling from the Panama Papers scandal.
Maryam and her husband Captain (retired) Mohmmad Safdar have also been summoned by the Accountability Court. The Sharif family alleges that the cases are politically motivated.
Maryam claimed that the Panama case was "not about corruption, money laundering or misuse of power."
Sharif, three-time prime minister, was disqualified by the Supreme Court over hiding asset details in his nomination papers for the 2013 general elections.
Just because the names appeared on the Panama Papers case it did not mean that those people were "necessarily involved in corruption or any wrongdoing," she said.
Maryam said the case was being used to humiliate the Sharif family. "We were asked private questions such as 'why does daughter live with her father? Why did a father give gifts to his daughter? Why did a son give money to his father?"
We were also openly labelled to be "don", "Sicilian mafia" and "Godfather". Everyone saw the murder of justice in the court, she added.
On the options available to her father in the current political scenario, she said: "Mian sahab has all the options."
When asked if Sharif has no fear of being jailed, she said: "We have been there and done that," recalling that her family members have been imprisoned as well as exiled in the past.
"There is no allegation of any corruption or kickback against him [Sharif]," she said.
"We are asked time and again where the money has come from? How did Hussain, Hassan [Nawaz's sons] become billionaires at such a young age," she said.
"People don't realise that Hassan and Hussain are grandsons of a billionaire, who was one of one of richest people in Pakistan at one point," Maryam added.
