News Desk |
In a significant development, the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) arrested on Wednesday a man, Tariq Mehmood, on charges of his alleged involvement in the video scandal involving accountability court judge Arshad Malik.
Judge Malik had named Mehmood in the affidavit submitted in the Islamabad High Court (IHC).
Following the arrest, the FIA officials produced Mehmood before a district and sessions court, which remanded his physical custody remand for two days. The FIA had asked for a 10-day physical custody remand.
Maryam while addressing a press conference in Lahore on July 6 alongside the top leadership of the PML-N, had said that her father’s entire judicial process was severely compromised.
The court has also directed the FIA to conduct suspect’s medical checkup and submit the medical report by the next date of hearing – July 19. FIA brought Mehmood in the district courts in an armored personal carrier (APC) with heavy security protocol.
Judge Malik’s Affidavit
Judge Arshad Malik in an affidavit submitted in IHC had claimed he was offered Rs500 million by the son of ousted prime minister Nawaz Sharif to resign on the pretext that he could “no longer deal with the guilt of having convicted the former premier under duress and without evidence”.
“Mian Tariq, an old social acquaintance from the time I was serving in Multan as additional district and sessions judge from 2000-2003, showed me a secretly recorded and manipulated immoral video in a compromising position saying that is it you doing this when you were serving in Multan,” the judge wrote in the affidavit.
Read more: Judge Arshad Malik: A hard pill to swallow for PML-N
The judge further claimed that he was blackmailed after being shown the video” and told to record an audio message that he delivered the verdicts to appease the “ruling elite” under an immense pressure and that substantial evidence was not available against the former prime minister.
How Maryam Exposed PML-N’s Link with Accountability Court Judge
Days after Maryam Nawaz claimed that an accountability court judge was blackmailed to give judgment against her father – ex-prime minister Nawaz Sharif – politicians and political analysts have not only started questioning the authenticity of the audio-video clips but several other aspects of the meeting between the judge and PML-N official.
The political analysts believe that the real significance of the audio & video clips purportedly showing Judge Arshad Malik confessing that he was “blackmailed and forced” to convict Sharif in a corruption case is that it establishes that Sharif family’s agent Nasir Butt – the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) loyalist – was in constant contact with the judge to obtain a favorable verdict.
Read more: Judge Arshad Malik removed. Whose victory is it?
The political experts say that the audio-video clips released by Maryam simply show that Nasir is sitting with the NAB court judge, negotiating and probably trying to bribe the judge to obtain a favorable judgment – an acquittal or weak decision in Al-Azizia Steel Mills and Flagship references.
Maryam while addressing a press conference in Lahore on July 6 alongside the top leadership of the PML-N, had said that her father’s entire judicial process was severely compromised.