Islamabad (June 15, 2017): Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif will appear before the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) constituted to probe allegations against the prime minister and his children stemming from the Panama Papers.
PM Nawaz Sharif will make history today by appearing before the JIT as he will become the first ever sitting prime minister, who appear before any investigating agency. Infect the pm will prove the supremacy of lawn and constitution in the country today by appearing before the JIT.
The unprecedented development will make him the first incumbent to appear before such a panel, let alone one probing allegations of financial irregularities or fraud against nearly his entire family, going back three generations.
The summon was issued by the JIT on June 8, 2017 and asked the PM “to appear and associate with the JIT on Thursday, June 15, 2017 at 1100 hours, at the office of the JIT, Federal Judicial Academy, Service Road South, Sector H-8/4, Islamabad”.
The JIT’s summons also reminded the PM to “kindly bring along relevant record/documents/material” related to the Panama Papers case. This will entail nearly all the documents and evidence submitted before the Supreme Court by the PM’s counsel, Makhdoom Ali Khan.
In its judgement of April 20 in the Panama Papers case, the Supreme Court had constituted a JIT and empowered it to summon the prime minister, his sons and any other person necessary, to investigate allegations of money-laundering, through which the four apartments in London’s Park Lane area were purchased.
Earlier, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s elder son Hussain Nawaz had been summoned five times by the JIT and grilled him for hours in each session. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s Younger son Hassan Nawaz was also summoned by the JIT twice and was probed about London flats and Hudabia Paper mills.
Hussain Nawaz filed a request in the Supreme Court (SC) seeking the formation of a commission to investigate the ‘leaking’ of a CCTV image of his appearance before the joint investigation team (JIT) probing allegations of money laundering against the Sharif family.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday reserved its judgment on petition seeking stoppage of video recording of Panama papers case Joint Investigation Team (JIT) proceedings and leaking of Hussain Nawaz photograph.
A three-member special implementation bench of the apex court headed by Justice Ejaz Afzal Khan and comprising Justice Sheikh Azmat Saeed and Justice Ijaz ul Ahsan heard the case filed by Hussain Nawaz.
The six-member JIT has been constituted by the apex court to examine the business dealings of the Sharif family abroad. The apex court has also been monitoring the proceedings of the JIT on fortnightly basis.
Led by Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) Wajid Zia, the team will consist of State Bank of Pakistan officer Amer Aziz, Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan Executive Director Bilal Rasool, National Accountability Bureau’s Balochistan Director General Irfan Naeem Mangi, retired Brig Mohammad Nauman Saeed of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and Brig Kamran Khurshid from Military Intelligence (MI).
Hussain Nawaz had also filed the petition before the Supreme Court, challenging the presence of two JIT members — Bilal Rasool of the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) and Amer Aziz of the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) — objecting to their presence. The apex court, however, dismissed his petition as being “premature”.
In its report before a three-judge Supreme Court bench, the JIT had alleged that the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP), the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR), the law ministry and the Intelligence Bureau (IB) were creating obstructions in handing over records, and that they were guilty of forgery and tampering with relevant documents.
A spokesman of Punjab government on Wednesday said that Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif would appear before the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) probing the offshore holdings of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his children on June 17.
Following the appearance of PM Nawaz sons Hussain Nawaz and Hassan Nawaz, JIT had summoned PM on June 15 and his brother Chief Minister Punjab Shehbaz Sharif on June 17, and now JIT has summoned PM’s son-in-law Captain Safdar on June 24 along with related documents.
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