KARACHI: A day after she called for the court martial of the country’s former spy chief, PML-N Senior Vice President Maryam Nawaz on Thursday claimed that the former chief justice who led the bench that disqualified her father had sought an ‘extension’ from Nawaz Sharif.

In an interview with DawnNews’ Adil Shahzeb on Thursday, Ms Sharif — who has previously accused former Justice Asif Saeed Khosa of being part a “conspiracy” against her father — said: “Place your hand on the [Holy] Quran and tell [the world] whether your extension as the chief justice was not being talked about.”

In 2017, a bench headed by ex-CJP Khosa disqualified Nawaz Sharif in the Panama Papers case for holding an iqama (work permit).

If Nawaz Sharif had agreed to it, she claimed, Justice Khosa would have gotten an extension in service and CJP Umar Ata Bandial would not be the current chief justice. She said there was even talk of increasing the retirement age of Supreme Court judges, which she said was for Justice Khosa’s benefit.

Claims her father denied former Justice Khosa an extension; sees ‘admission of guilt’ in Gen Hamid’s response to allegations

Ms Sharif said a delegation had conveyed the then-chief justice’s message to Nawaz, who was in jail at the time, adding that the PML-N supremo had refused to grant the extension.

During the interview, she also spoke about former Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) director general (DG) retired Lt-Gen Faiz Hamid, calling his ‘response’ to her allegations “an admission”.

Gen Hamid’s ‘response’, relayed by senior journalist Kamran Khan, said that he was merely a major general in the army when the elder Sharif was disqualified, adding that it is the army chief who calls the shots.

Referring to this, Ms Sharif interpreted the remarks as a “confession of his crime”, adding: “If he has accepted it and confessed to it, then the institution of the armed forces [should] itself take notice.”

Calling Gen Hamid a “stigma” blighting the army, she expressed the hope that the institution would itself hold him accountable. She also spoke about the PTI worker who was tragically killed on Wednesday, offering her condolences to the deceased’s family and calling for a thorough investigation into his death.

She also chided the PTI chief for staying home while his supporters were on the streets. “If you give a call to your workers, the leader of the party should be leading from the front,” she said.

“We do not use our workers as shields, in fact we shield our workers,” Maryam Nawaz said.

Published in Dawn, March 10th, 2023