A Pakistani court declared Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s daughter and husband “innocent’ and absolved them of all charges in a large-scale corruption and money laundering case that was first registered in 2022. The Anti-Corruption Establishment (ACE) told the Anti-Corruption Court on Monday that there was no evidence to suggest that Sharif’s daughter Rabia Imran and her husband Ali Imran Yousaf were involved in the Punjab Saaf Pani Company corruption and money laundering case.
An accountability court had issued perpetual arrest warrants for the couple in 2022 during the Imran Khan administration. The pair fled to the United Kingdom to evade arrest, leading the court to declare them “proclaimed offenders”.
The accountability court suspended the arrest warrant last week and reportedly absolved the couple of all corruption and money laundering charges in the first hearing of the case. Rabia Imran and her husband returned to Pakistan from the UK after the court granted them bail a few weeks ago.
Sharif was also named in the case but was acquitted due to the lack of evidence, drawing criticism from the opposition.
Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf party slammed the acquittal of Sharif and other coalition members in different corruption cases and accused the ruling of being the result of a “compromised judiciary” and a “NAB-PMLN nexus”, alleging to an alliance between the National Accountability Bureau and the Pakistan Muslim League.
The party described the acquittals as the “demise of justice” and called out the judiciary for its silence on state-backed political terrorism.
Former Prime Minister and founder of PMLN Nawaz Sharif was also acquitted in corruption cases, including Al-Azizia, for which he was serving a seven-year imprisonment in Lahore jail.
Imran Khan was removed from power in April 2022 through a no-confidence motion. He was later arrested in August 2023 and is currently incarcerated in Adiala Jail in Rawalpindi.
