Islamabad, Dec 23 (PTI) A Pakistani court here on Friday granted an extension of anticipatory bail till January 7 to Suleman Shehbaz, the younger son of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, in two separate cases of money laundering and amassing assets beyond known sources of income, media reports said.

The extension granted by the Islamabad High Court (IHC) comes days after Suleman, 40, was given pre-arrest bail on December 13 after he returned to Pakistan earlier this month after remaining in self-exile in London for four years, the Dawn newspaper reported

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"Suleman had filed a petition in the IHC through his counsel for two weeks' protective bail in a money laundering case registered against him. It has been granted till January 7," the report said.

Suleman is an accused in a money laundering case registered with the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) while the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has named him in an assets-beyond-means case.

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On Friday, Suleman implored the court that he and his family had been subjected to political victimisation by implicating them in forged cases, The Express Tribune newspaper reported.

On December 13 too, the court, after hearing the plea by his lawyer, granted 14-day protective bail to him, preventing Suleman's arrest by the FIA.

Earlier, the IHC had barred FIA from arresting Suleman upon his arrival in Pakistan and ordered him to surrender before the authorities by December 13.

Suleman had gone abroad in October 2018, after which a case of money laundering was filed against him by the FIA. He then continued to live in the UK in self-imposed exile.

The protective bail granted by the IHC would save him from arrest in the money laundering case. He was accused of absenteeism in the case.

In his latest petition, Suleman said that the prosecution managed to procure various orders, including an order declaring him a proclaimed offender "through misrepresentation and concealment of material facts.

In the petition, he stated that he was made a victim of false cases by authorities under the regime of ousted prime minister Imran Khan.

Pleading for his innocence, Suleman told the court that he had returned to Pakistan to surrender to the process of law, the report said.

Apart from Suleman, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and his elder son Hamza Sharif were also booked by the FIA for the case of money laundering worth over Rs 16 billion.

However, in October, Prime Minister Shehbaz and his elder son Hamza were acquitted in the money laundering case. PTI

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)