A High Court in Pakistan on Wednesday said the conviction and prison sentences of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his daughter Maryam Nawaz in a corruption case “may not be ultimately sustainable”, Dawn reported. In July, a lower court sentenced Nawaz Sharif to 10 years in jail, Maryam Nawaz to seven years and her husband Captain (retired) Safdar to a year in prison.

A two-member bench of the Islamabad High Court, which granted the three bail in September and suspended their jail terms, said its observation in the Avenfield corruption case was based on a “prima facie, tentative opinion after a plain reading of the [Avenfield] judgement and tentative assessment of evidence permissible while considering a case for suspension of sentence in terms of section 426 of the Code of Criminal Procedure”.

The National Accountability Bureau has filed three cases against Sharif and his children that are related to the purchase of four flats in London’s Avenfield House. The bureau registered the case on the basis of the Supreme Court’s orders in its Panamagate verdict in July 2017 that removed Sharif from the post of prime minister.

The agency has also named Sharif’s sons – Hussain Nawaz and Hassan Nawaz – as accused in the cases. The former prime minister and his family have insisted that they purchased the apartments using legitimate financial resources but were unable to disclose them before either the accountability court or the Supreme Court.