LONDON: Former aide and financier of MQM, Sarfraz Merchant has stated that the London Metropolitan Police is still pursuing a money laundering case against the party founder.
Merchant said this in an interview with Geo News on Sunday.
“The [London Metropolitan] police never closed the money laundering case. The evidence is present which will be handed over to the authorities soon and on basis of [that evidence], I’m 99 per cent certain that the Crown Prosecution Service will reverse its decision and proceed with the case,” he said.
Merchant, a co-accused in the money laundering case in addition to the MQM founder was taken into custody in 2013 following evidence of multiple financial transfers from his account into MQM’s UK account for Altaf Hussain and MQM’s senior member Muhammad Anwar.
He claimed to personally hand over some material relevant to the case to the London Met police.
“All the evidence of funding for terrorism, the money trail, and all the banking transactions are present with the FIA,” he stated hoping that the case will be concluded soon.
When the MQM office was raided in December 2012, a parcel containing cash was recovered from the office premises. Upon investigation, the MQM claimed in an affidavit submitted to the police that the parcel belonged to Sarfraz Merchant while Merchant in his statement told the police that the cash was donated to the MQM.
Merchant later revealed that the cash was given as a donation to MQM in early December 2012 and the MQM leader himself “requested for a loan in 2013”. Later, Merchant stated that he had been misdirected since his donation to the party was illegal as MQM was an unregistered political charity in the UK. It could therefore not claim donations.