LAHORE: The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) has released a video clip purportedly showing the accountability court judge allegedly admitting to a lack of evidence against former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in the Al-Azizia Steel Mills reference.

PML-N Vice-President and Nawaz Sharif's daughter Maryam Nawaz showed the alleged video and read out its transcript on Saturday at a press conference lasting more than an hour. PML-N President Shehbaz Sharif, former Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, and other senior party leaders accompanied Maryam Nawaz at the press conference.

In December, the accountability court had sentenced former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to seven years in prison in the Al-Azizia Steel Mills Company and Hill Metal Establishment reference and imposed a fine of Rs1.5 billion and $25 million on him.

The alleged video released by the opposition party on Saturday purportedly shows the accountability court judge speaking to a PML-N worker and claiming that he was coerced to hand down sentence against Nawaz Sharif despite there being no proof of corruption against the deposed premier.

Maryam said the video also allegedly shows the judge admitting that no evidence of embezzlement of funds in Pakistan or in Saudi Arabia was found against Hussain Nawaz Sharif.

She said the judge had contacted the PML-N worker and told him that he was feeling guilty and was getting nightmares ever since he announced the verdict that led to Nawaz Sharif's imprisonment.

The judge was "blackmailed" into handing down the sentence against Nawaz Sharif after some people threatened that they would release a private video of his, she alleged. Maryam claimed the judge was under immense pressure to convict and send Nawaz Sharif to jail, and that he had contemplated committing suicide several times since.

Speaking at the press conference, Maryam termed the alleged video "divine intervention" which had arrived to help her father at a time when he had given up hopes of getting justice from the courts.

She said the one who handed down the sentence had now himself admitted that Nawaz Sharif was wronged. She claimed the video vindicated her father and was evidence of his innocence.—NNI