Pakistan's Anti-Graft agency Arrests, Indicts Opposition ...

ISLAMABAD - Pakistan's anti-corruption authorities Monday arrested the leader of the opposition in Parliament, Shehbaz Sharif, after a high courtroom rejected his bail plea in a funds laundering case. 

Sharif, president of the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) (PML-N), become taken into custody from the court docket's premises in the jap city of Lahore. His spouse, little kids are additionally accused within the case. 

shortly before his arrest, Sharif denied any wrongdoing because the chief executive of Pakistan's most populous province of Punjab. 

His elder brother, best Minister Nawaz Sharif, become ousted in 2017 after a court sentenced him to a seven-12 months reformatory term for possessing assets beyond his well-known sources of earnings. 

FILE - Supporters of former Pakistani best Minister Nawaz Sharif chant slogans backyard the Lahore high court docket, in Lahore, Pakistan, Nov. sixteen, 2019.

the former best minister is undergoing scientific medication in London where the Sharif household owns expensive property, the field of courtroom instances instituted towards them in Pakistan. 

Monday's legal action against Sharif got here hours after Asif Ali Zardari, a former president of the country and chief of a different opposition birthday celebration, turned into additionally indicted on funds laundering expenses. 

FILE - Former Pakistani president Asif Ali Zardari, core, leaves the high courtroom constructing, in Islamabad, June 10, 2019.

Zardari's sister, Faryal Talpur, and 13 different americans were additionally indicted all through Monday's listening to in Islamabad. all of the accused pleaded no longer guilty.  

Anti-corruption officers say the costs stemmed from cash laundering via false Pakistani bank money owed and agencies. 

The illicit economic outflows passed off when Zardari turned into serving as the president of the country from 2008 to 2013. His Pakistan Peoples celebration (PPP) was main the ruling coalition at the time. 

Zardari, widower of slain former prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, is a member of the countrywide legislature and faces a few corruption-related court docket situations. 

the former president's son, lawmaker Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, is chairman of the PPP. He condemned the arrest of his father in a tweet, saying, "Victimization of opposition continues throughout global pandemic." 

Opposition events allege top Minister Imran Khan's govt is "victimizing" its political opponents, in collusion with the country's powerful armed forces, in the guise of accountability. 

FILE - Pakistan's major Minister Imran Khan speaks in Islamabad, Pakistan, March 16, 2020.

Khan and his aides reject the fees and as an alternative accuse PML-N and PPP leaders of stashing billions of dollars in their offshore bills while in power. 

Pakistan's mainstream opposition parties, including PML-N and PPP, fashioned a brand new anti-executive alliance previous this month and vowed to launch an anti-executive national circulation to drive Khan to step down. 

They also denounced the military for meddling in country wide politics and rigging the 2018 elections to deliver Khan to power.  

"If justice had prevailed, retired Gen. Asim Bajwa would have been arrested," Maryam Nawaz, Sharif's daughter, informed a Monday information convention in accordance with her uncle's arrest. 

FILE - Pakistan's military spokesman principal-widespread Asim Bajwa briefs the media in Peshawar, Pakistan, Dec. sixteen, 2014.

Bajwa is an adviser to Khan and heads the country wide authority overseeing the multibillion China-Pakistan economic hall, known as CPEC.  

A recent investigative media file accused the former prevalent of collecting distant places belongings worth tens of millions of dollars past his standard profits sources, expenses Bajwa rejected. 

Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf celebration (PTI) gained the 2018 election, promising to stem corruption and convey to justice these responsible. 

while addressing the United nations widely wide-spread meeting on Friday, the Pakistani major minister underscored the value of international cooperation against illicit fiscal flows from establishing countries to rich nations and to offshore tax havens there. 

"The wealthy states can't hang forth on human rights and justice when they deliver sanctuary to money launderers and their looted wealth," Khan pointed out. "I call upon this assembly to take the lead in efforts to construct a worldwide framework to stem the illicit monetary flows and confirm fast repatriation of stolen wealth."