Maryam Nawaz was arrested by NAB in Chaudhry Sugar Mills case

The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) arrested on Thursday opposition leader Maryam Nawaz from Lahore’s Kot Lakhpat Jail where she was visiting her incarcerated father, former premier Nawaz Sharif.
According to an official statement by NAB, Maryam and her cousin Yousaf Abbas Sharif were taken into custody in connection with a graft case relating to Chaudhry Sugar Mills (CSM), a sugar mill owned by the Sharif family.
They will be presented before an accountability court on Friday, the statement added.An NAB team also raided the home of Shehbaz Sharif, the current leader of the opposition, and Maryam’s uncle, in search of another her cousins, Abdul Aziz, an agency official said on condition of anonymity.
Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Accountability Shahzad Akbar had alleged on Wednesday that the Sharif family used CSM for money laundering and availed millions of rupees in subsidy without actually exporting sugar.
Addressing a news conference, Akbar said the sugar mill was set up in 1991 as an offshore company when Nawaz was the prime minister and the family had obtained a loan of $15 million from Bahrain to purchase its machinery
The prime minister’s aide said in the year 2008, the mill’s shares were transferred to Maryam Nawaz, who later transferred around seven million of them to Yousaf in 2010.
Maryam had appeared before NAB on July 31 to record her statement in the mills regarding ‘dubious’ business transactions of the CSM.
Her arrest in Lahore comes just a day after authorities took former finance minister Miftah Ismail into custody on graft charges.
Last month, former prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi and former president Asif Ali Zardari were also arrested.
Her father, who served as prime minister three times, was sentenced in 2018 to seven years in jail for corruption.
She was also convicted in the Avenfield properties reference for seven years. The Islamabad High Court, however, had suspended the sentence and ordered her release.
Maryam is one of the few opposition figures who openly criticise Prime Minister Imran Khan, accusing him of censoring rallies and press conferences held by her party.
Last month she made public a video which purportedly showed the judge who had convicted her father in a corruption case saying he was blackmailed into delivering a guilty verdict against Nawaz.