May 3, 2026
#World

Pak judge ‘blackmailed’ into issuing verdict against Sharif

Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz leader Maryam Nawaz has released a video clip purportedly showing an accountability court judge allegedly confessing that he was “blackmailed and forced” to convict former premier Nawaz Sharif in a corruption case.

Addressing a press conference in Lahore on Saturday alongside the top leadership of the PML-N, Maryam, the daughter of 69-year-old Sharif, said her father’s entire judicial process was severely compromised.

Maryam claimed Accountability Court Islamabad Judge Arshad Malik, who sentenced Sharif to a seven-year imprisonment in the Al-Azizia corruption case, confessed in his conversation with PML-N supporter Nasir Butt that he was “blackmailed and forced ” to give verdict against the former premier.

The video purportedly shows the judge speaking to Butt and claiming that he was coerced to hand down the prison sentence against Sharif despite there being no proof of corruption against him.

Sharif has been serving a seven-year prison term at the Kot Lakhpat Jail in Lahore since December 24, 2018, when the accountability court convicted him in the Al-Azizia Steel Mills case, one of the three corruption cases filed in the wake of the apex court’s July 28, 2017 order in Panama Papers case. Sharif and his family allege that the cases were politically motivated.

The Imran Khan government termed the leaked video “doctored” and demanded its forensic audit, saying that “it is an attack on the judiciary.”On Sunday, the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority issued notices to 21 TV channels for the “unedited live telecast” of Maryam’s press conference.

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