The government’s bid to persuade Prince Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber al Thani of Qatar to attest before the joint investigation team (JIT) probing into the Panama scandal seems to be going in vain.
The task to encourage the Qatari royal to visit Pakistan for recording his statement before the JIT was assigned to Pakistan’s former attorney general Salman Aslam Butt and former chief of the defunct Ehtesab Bureau Saifur Rehman.
Successively, Butt had travelled to Qatar last week while Rehman is already based in the Arab state. However, both have failed to sway the prince, who had provided two letters to establish the money trail for the Sharif’s London properties during the hearing of the Panamagate case before the Supreme Court.
The JIT had sent two letters to the Qatari prince last month. In his reply, the prince had stated that he stood by the statement given in his letters presented before the Supreme Court.
However, a senior PML-N lawyer said the letter would not be enough to prove the money trial until the prince recorded his statement.
“The family has only less than a month to convince al Thani to record his statement,” he said, adding that Butt and Rehman were still making efforts to convince him to appear before the JIT via video link.
He said the legal team was also evolving an replacement strategy in case al Thani chose not to appear.
“Khawaja Haris advocate, who is supervising the family affairs before the JIT, will definitely make a plan to deal with the prevailing situation,” he added without going into detail.
A senior lawyer, who was part of the Sharifs’ legal team in the past, said no one could bind a foreigner to record a statement under the law. However, the top court has already asked the JIT to disregard the Qatari prince’s letter if he does not appear in person before the panel.
“The respondents [Sharif family] will have to face consequences if the prince fails to appear before the JIT,” the apex court’s three-judge bench had recently observed.
Meanwhile, sources said the JIT is considering summoning Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Finance Minister Ishaq Dar in the coming weeks.