SC may interrogate Tareen about trust’s links with Swiss banks: report

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LONDON: UK lawyers have told disqualified Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf leader Jehangir Tareen that the Supreme Court (SC) may ask him questions about his offshore trust’s links with the Swiss accounts and banks, according to a report by a local English daily.

According to the report, Tareen has been advised that if that happens, he will have to give a full disclosure which will end up revealing more assets and accounts. Evidence confirming the links exists already exists, as the trust deed was signed and executed in Geneva.

On December 15, the SC disqualified Jahangir Tareen from holding public office, for not being entirely truthful about the ownership of a Hyde Park property in London. The SC did not accept a single contention or argument given by him in defence of his undeclared offshore asset, £7 million house, in Newbury, ironically called “Hyde House”, the report suggests.

As opposed to the contention of Imran Khan and Jahangir Tareen that he was disqualified on “technical interpretation” of the trust, the court disqualified Tareen for “blatant misstatement before the highest judicial forum of the country”, and concluded that “Hyde House” is, in fact, owned by him.

The SC also did not accept the money trail provided by Jahangir Tareen for the 550 million rupees transferred abroad, for the purchase of the offshore property. The court ruled that the amount of £2,295,000 was remitted by the respondent through 11 cheques from his foreign currency account No 1242-0000-1899-12 maintained with the HBL (Pakistan) to his own payee account (HBL) in the UK.

No record of Tareen’s bank account was presented before the court in this regard, instead, a self-prepared statement was placed on the record, which the court refused to accept. The SC declared that the financial aspect of the transaction remains absolutely unexplained and unclear. Tareen had taken a plea that for reconstruction of Hyde House a loan was availed from a British bank but the SC did not accept this argument.

“We hold that Shiny View Limited (SVL), an off-shore company, was established by the respondent which has legal title of the property measuring 12 acres known as “Hyde House” but the actual, true, real and beneficial owner of the said property is the respondent,” ruled the court.

“Respondent has sent around more than Rs500 million at the exchange rate prevalent at that time and claims that amount to have been utilised for the purposes of purchase and construction of “Hyde House”.