Pak judge 'blackmailed' into issuing verdict against Sharif: Maryam Nawaz
Lahore: 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 that her father's entire judicial process was severely compromised.
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 have denied any wrongdoing and allege that the corruption cases against them were politically motivated.
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 (by hidden forces)" 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.
The Imran Khan government termed the leaked video "doctored" and demanded its forensic audit, saying that "it is an attack on the judiciary."
Maryam said this was a "divine help" as her father failed to get justice in cases against him.
She said Judge Malik had categorically declared that there was no evidence of money laundering, commission or any other wrong financial transaction against Sharif but he had "orders to send him jail for which I am repenting."
The judge was "blackmailed" into handing down the sentence against Sharif after some people threatened that they would release a private video of his, she alleged. She said the judge did not write the sentence but "was made to write" the prison sentence for Sharif.
She claimed the judge was under immense pressure to send the former prime minister to jail, and that he had contemplated committing suicide several times since.
Maryam said after the revelation of the video her father should not be kept behind the bars any more. She also hinted to use this video in the bail case of Sharif in Islamabad High Court.
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Broken relationships don't automatically amount to abetment of suicide: SC
New Delhi (PTI): Broken relationships, while emotionally distressing, do not automatically amount to abetment of suicide in the absence of intention leading to the criminal offence, the Supreme Court on Friday said.
The observations came from a bench of Justices Pankaj Mithal and Ujjal Bhuyan in a judgement, which overturned the conviction of one Kamaruddin Dastagir Sanadi by the Karnataka High Court for the offences of cheating and abetment of suicide under the IPC.
"This is a case of a broken relationship, not criminal conduct," the judgment said.
Sanadi was initially charged under Sections 417 (cheating), 306 (abetment of suicide), and 376 (rape) of the IPC.
While the trial court acquitted him of all the charges, the Karnataka High Court, on the state's appeal, convicted him of cheating and abetment of suicide, sentencing him to five years imprisonment and imposing Rs 25,000 in fine.
According to the FIR registered at the mother's instance, her 21-year-old daughter was in love with the accused for the past eight years and died by suicide in August, 2007, after he refused to keep his promise to marry.
Writing a 17-page judgement, Justice Mithal analysed the two dying declarations of the woman and noted that neither was there any allegation of a physical relationship between the couple nor there was any intentional act leading to the suicide.
The judgement therefore underlined broken relationships were emotionally distressing, but did not automatically amount to criminal offences.
"Even in cases where the victim dies by suicide, which may be as a result of cruelty meted out to her, the courts have always held that discord and differences in domestic life are quite common in society and that the commission of such an offence largely depends upon the mental state of the victim," said the apex court.
The court further said, "Surely, until and unless some guilty intention on the part of the accused is established, it is ordinarily not possible to convict him for an offence under Section 306 IPC.”
The judgement said there was no evidence to suggest that the man instigated or provoked the woman to die by suicide and underscored a mere refusal to marry, even after a long relationship, did not constitute abetment.
