The Presidency has challenged the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) government to hold investigations into a secret letter written by the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) government to the Swiss authorities asking them to shun cases against President Asif Ali Zardari and ignore an earlier letter sent with the approval of the Supreme Court of Pakistan to re-open the cases.
“We are not in the government any more. The current government has all the documents and records with it so they should probe the matter and let us see what happens,” Farhatullah Babar told reporters.
When asked whether the president was consulted by the former government while writing the secret letter to Swiss authorities, Babar said it was not relevant. “The real issue is that this is not for the first time that such hype is created against President Zardari. It happened in the past as well and whenever such hype was created it ended up in a whimper.”
In a shocking revelation, the Supreme Court was told on Wednesday that the previous government had sent a first letter to the Swiss authorities on the direction of the apex court on November 5, 2012 asking them to re-open the cases, only to tell them through a secret letter on November 22 to close the cases again and ignore the earlier advice.
Minister for information Pervez Rashid said that investigation into the secret letter would be completed soon and those found responsible for the fraud with the nation and the Supreme Court will be dealt with in accordance with the law.
“We have already launched investigation and it won’t take long before the probe is completed as the team comprising Aftab Sultan and Sami Saeed will have to find some documents and interview a few people to reach some conclusion,” he said.
Asked whether the government will initiate fraud proceedings against the key officials of the former government who wrote secret letter to the Swiss authorities without informing the Supreme Court, Rashid said the government would proceed on the issue strictly according to the law.