The son-in-law of ousted Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sharif was yesterday arrested at Islamabad airport by the nation’s anti-corruption body on his return from London, officials said, a rare instance of a powerful politician being detained.
Muhammad Safdar, a lawmaker married to Sharif’s daughter and heir-apparent Maryam Safdar, was arrested after he failed to appear at previous National Accountability Bureau (NAB) court hearings about corruption allegations stemming from a probe into the Sharif family’s wealth.
The Sharif family have denied any wrongdoing and have labeled the corruption proceedings against the family as politically motivated.
Two of Nawaz’s sons are also due to appear before the NAB court, along with Pakistani Minister of Finance Ishaq Dar.
Nawaz was disqualified by the Supreme Court in July for not declaring a source of income that he disputes receiving. The court also ordered a wide-ranging NAB investigation and trial into Sharif’s family.
The Supreme Court specified that the trial be concluded within six months by the NAB, which has in the past been derided as toothless because rich and powerful politicians have seldom been convicted.
Muhammad Safdar, who was arrested soon after midnight, was expected to be released after his NAB court appearance with Maryam Safdar yesterday morning.
Some supporters from the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz trying to stop the car from leaving the airport, including some who laid down in front of it.
A senior party official urged them to give way.
Pakistani Minister for Railways Khawaja Saad Rafique said on Twitter no resistance was made to Muhammad Safdar’s arrest, even though the party had “serious reservations” about the judicial process.
Sharif’s disqualification stems from the “Panama Papers” leaks last year that appeared to show that his daughter and two sons owned offshore holding companies registered in the British Virgin Islands and used them to buy properties in London.
Some senior Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz officials, including Maryam Safdar, have hinted that elements of the powerful military had a hidden hand in the Supreme Court disqualification.
The army has denied playing a role.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
The pitch is a classic: A young celebrity with no climbing experience spends a year in hard training and scales Mount Everest, succeeding against some — if not all — odds. French YouTuber Ines Benazzouz, known as Inoxtag, brought the story to life with a two-hour-plus documentary about his year preparing for the ultimate challenge. The film, titled Kaizen, proved a smash hit on its release last weekend. Young fans queued around the block to get into a preview screening in Paris, with Inoxtag’s management on Monday saying the film had smashed the box office record for a special cinema