ECP’s secrecy branch after preparing file pertaining to PM’s asset details, issue it to Chief Election Commissioner, who will then hand it over to JIT
- During a meeting, JIT ask NAB to provide Hudaibya Paper Mills case’s complete record
Mandated by Supreme Court of Pakistan to investigate Panama Leaks scandal, the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) on Thursday summoned the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to file asset details of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.
Sources privy to the development confided in Pakistan Today that the ECP agreed to provide the details of declared assets to JIT, while sources in ECP said that they have the detail of Sharif family assets of all elections post-2002.
The JIT formed by the apex court to probe the charges against the PM and his children, wrote a letter to the election commission to submit the PM’s details, along with the details of his son-in-law Captain Safdar.
The JIT, in the letter written to the ECP, asked the body to submit the details of the prime minister’s assets from 2013 to 2016 in three days. The ECP’s secrecy branch has prepared the file pertaining to the premier’s asset details. The file has been issued to the Chief Election Commissioner, who will then hand it over to the JIT.
On May 10, a session of the JIT was held to decide on the investigation method for the Panama Papers case.
It is important to mention here that the JIT formed on the orders of the Supreme Court of Pakistan included members of the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP), Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP), National Accountability Bureau (NAB), Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), and Military Intelligence (MI).
Earlier, the JIT members had met at the Federal Judicial Academy in Islamabad, which has now been declared the JIT Secretariat. The members have also moved their offices to the location ahead of the investigation.
During the meeting, headed by FIA Additional Director Wajid Zia, JIT asked NAB to provide a complete record of the Hudaibya Paper Mills case.
Terms of Reference (ToRs) were also reviewed in the session that was attended by JIT members State Bank of Pakistan’s (SBP) Amer Aziz, SECP’s Bilal Rasool, ISI’s Brigadier Nauman Saeed, Military Intelligence’s Brigadier Kamran Khursheed and NAB Director Irfan Mangi, who was attending the session for the first time since he was out of country.
Sources told that JIT would seek the assistance of experts from FIA and other departments to ensure fair investigation, whereas it would also comprehensively review court’s decisions and available documents.
The Supreme Court’s special bench constituted the JIT to probe funds used by the prime minister’s children to buy properties in London through offshore businesses.
In order to ensure that the JIT operates independently, the Supreme Court had ordered the government to issue the JIT Rs20 million.
The Supreme Court of Pakistan has also granted permission to the members of the JIT to go on foreign trips—if they deem it necessary in the course of their investigation.
The questions that the joint team would be looking into include the following:
- Question No 1: How were Gulf Steel Mills set up?
- Question No 2: What happened with the returns of Gulf Steel Mills
- Question No 3: How did the money earned from Gulf Steel Mills end up in Jeddah, Qatar and Britain?
- Question No 4: What were the reasons for selling Gulf Steel Mills?
- Question No 5: Did the young Hassan Nawaz and Hussain Nawaz have resources enough to buy flats in London in the 90s?
- Question No 6: Is the Qatari letter a reality or just a fabricated letter?
- Question No 7: Who is the real owner of Nelson and Nescol?
- Question No 8: How did the bearer certificates of the offshore companies turn into flats?
- Question No 9: Where did Hassan Nawaz get the money from for a flagship company and business in London, while there is no transaction recorded to prove the flow of money?
- Question No 10: How was Hill Metal Company set up?
- Question No 11: How did Hussain Nawaz gift millions of rupees to his father and where did the money for those gifts come from?
The Supreme Court on April 20 ruled there was insufficient evidence to order PM Nawaz’s removal from office over corruption allegations levelled by the opposition, but it ordered further investigations.
Two of the five judges on the court bench recommended Sharif should step down, saying he was dishonest “to the nation as well as to the parliament”, but they were outvoted.
Presenting its 549-page judgment, the court ordered a joint investigation team be formed to look into allegations around three of Sharif’s four children, using offshore companies to buy properties in London.
The team has two months to complete its inquiry, after which a special bench will decide what action to take, the court said in a ruling that opens with the epigraph from Mario Puzo’s novel “The Godfather”: “Behind every great fortune there is a crime”.
The prime minister and his children deny any wrongdoing.