–Son of former Punjab CM rejects money laundering allegations, says Imran using NAB to victimise Sharifs, PPP leadership
Opposition Leader in National Assembly Shehbaz Sharif’s son Suleman Shehbaz has rejected money laundering allegations levelled against him by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), saying the anti-graft watchdog should instead question Prime Minister Imran Khan about his own “unexplained assets worth Rs4 billion”.
“In 2012, Imran Khan declared that the value of his assets is only Rs120 million but within some years his assets ballooned to Rs4bn. He has never worked all these years and he must explain how he made these assets? Is it because the PTI had government in KP for five years and Imran Khan received commission and kickbacks, if his logic is to be believed? He has held public office for a long time and must explain his assets to the public,” he said while talking to a private news channel on Monday.
Suleman said the “selected” prime minister was holding a media trial of the Sharif family and Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) leadership in order to divert people’s attention from real issues like price hike, electricity shortfall and economic meltdown brought about by the “incompetent and clueless” team of the PTI.
“Imran Khan is using NAB, FIA and IB to target Nawaz Sharif, Maryam Nawaz, Hamza, my father and the PPP leadership,” he claimed.
“I brought money from abroad into Pakistan for investment and that’s not money laundering. Each and everything that I own is declared with the FBR. Every penny that I invested in Pakistan is declared and on board, and record of each and every asset and business that I have ever owned is available with the relevant Pakistani authorities,” Suleman said, adding that he will remove the court against the fake allegations being made against him.
“Imran Khan has attention span of only five minutes. He has no plan to take control of the economic meltdown because he doesn’t understand the nuances of business and economic revival. He has no governance plan and his policies have failed, for him lying and making new allegations is the way forward,” Suleman said, adding that the PM promised that he will bring to Pakistan Rs300 billion of Nawaz Sharif from abroad after coming into power.
“I ask him where is that money now? Why didn’t he bring that amount to Pakistan? He knows that he lied about that and now he wants to hide behind more allegations by accusing us of corruption. I challenge him to bring the alleged billions and give some of it to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) instead of going around asking for money,” he said.
The son of the former Punjab chief minister said that he didn’t know any Mahboob Ali and had never dealt with him. He added that all his record was available with the Pakistani authorities and the PTI government was picking up “bits and pieces” from here and there and leaking to media for character assassination campaigns.
He said that he has never held a public office and there’s no question of misusing his authority or for that matter anyone in his family.
He said that he was living in London because his mother was getting treatment here, his newly-born niece is being treated and also there was no hope of justice from the NAB because “NAB is using laws of apartheid to carry out dirty work for the PTI. NAB is using its black laws for Imran Khan’s government to help hide its incompetence and failures.
“The only purpose of NAB is to target opponents of PTI. It puts people behind bars for months and doesn’t give them fair chance or legal right to defend. The political arm of PTI cannot do justice,” Suleman said.
