The decision comes a month after Shehbaz Sharif took office following a no-confidence vote against Jan.

MADRID, 12 May. (EUROPEAN PRESS) –

Pakistan’s Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) has announced its decision not to proceed with legal proceedings over alleged corruption against the current Prime Minister, Shehbaz Sharif, who took office in April following the success of the opposition’s vote of no confidence in Parliament. his predecessor, Imran Jan.

The agency’s announcement comes just three days before a special court in Lahore meets to file charges against Sharif and his son, Hamza Shehbaz, who is also the chief minister of Punjab province, according to Pakistani daily ‘Dawn.’

The Director General of the FIA ​​has indicated in a statement sent to special prosecutor Sikander Zulqarnain Salim that the case will not proceed because “the agencies involved are not interested in trying the accused”, in the framework of the case for alleged money laundering of 16,000 million Pakistani rupees (about 80 million euros). .

The agency had indicted Shehbaz and his sons Hamzah and Suleman on corruption charges in November 2020, in a case in which fourteen other people were also accused of corruption. Sharif and his son Hamzah were granted bail by the Lahore special court in January, while Suleman lives in the UK.

The allegations stem from an investigation which determined that the prime minister’s family had used 28 accounts to launder the aforementioned sums. “The FIA ​​examined the money trail of 17,000 financial transactions,” the agency said in a statement published in December 2021.

Sharif, the then opposition leader of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PLM-N), dismissed the allegations and framed him as part of Khan’s campaign of political persecution. The new government said in early May that it was also considering withdrawing or suspending it. prison sentence for corruption of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, brother of the current incumbent.

Nawaz Sharif, a corruption convict, received a medical permit in October 2019 to leave the prison he was in and a month later he was allowed to travel to the UK to receive four weeks of treatment, although he has since refused to return to Pakistan.