Shehbaz rails against govt for 'spewing lies', says their actions only brought disrepute to Pakistan.

LAHORE -- PML-N President Shehbaz Sharif on Wednesday hit back at the government for "spewing lies" against him and his family in the wake of a recent UK court verdict, saying their actions were only bringing disrepute to the country.

The Westminster Magistrates Court's decision was announced earlier this month and released on Monday on a report of the UK National Crime Agency (NCA) that said it had stopped a probe into suspicious bank transactions involving Suleman Shehbaz and others.

Addressing a press conference in Lahore, Shehbaz said that after the NCA's decision "they (government) have been burned and inflamed in the last three days as the last spurt of the last coal in a fire in winter."

The PML-N president said that the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) and Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) had levelled various accusations against him and his family members but could not prove even an ounce of corruption by him or his brother, PML-N supremo Nawaz Sharif.

Thus, Shehbaz said, the NCA had been approached regarding himself and his children. Reading from the NCA's documents submitted at the start of the investigation, Shehbaz said the NCA had received a letter from the Asset Recovery Unit (ARU) - instead of the investigation agency making a request itself.

Reading further, he said the documents mentioned NAB Lahore DG Shahzad Saleem meeting the NCA operations manager and indicating that NAB would be "happy to assist in any subsequent investigation".

"This tells [that] by then the NCA didn't even think of [any] investigation."

Shehbaz said this was "proof that government ministers have been leading the nation astray in the last 48 hours that they didn't approach the NCA but were approached by it".

Adviser to the Prime Minister on Interior and Accountability Mirza Shahzad Akbar had said a day earlier that reports of the ARU or NAB initiating the investigation were "incorrect" and they were in fact contacted by the NCA for details of criminal inquiries and convictions against the individuals being investigated.

The PML-N president also pushed back against the claims by ministers that the UK court verdict did not mention his name and was not related to him, saying that his name was mentioned in a number of relevant documents.

Shehbaz also responded to claims that he had not been acquitted of money laundering charges, asking that if the original charges on him were...