Charges against Sharif based on factual inquiries: ex-minister

ISLAMABAD, OCT 22: A minister in the previous Benazir Bhutto government has claimed that the money-laundering allegations against Pakista...

ISLAMABAD, OCT 22: A minister in the previous Benazir Bhutto government has claimed that the money-laundering allegations against Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his family were “based on factual inquiries” and that they had faced action until the Lahore high court “bailed (them) out”.

Naseerullah Babar, interior minister in the former Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) government, told mediapersons here on Wednesday that all formalities had been completed for initiating action against the Sharif family for the alleged money-laundering and defaulting on bank loans.

“But they were bailed out by the Lahore high court as most of the judges at that time were appointed by Sharif himself during his earlier tenure as chief minister of Punjab,” Babar said.

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He said the PPP would file a reference before an accountability commission and a petition before the supreme court demanding action against the premier on the basis of the report carried by the Independent newspaper of London, which allegedthat bank accounts containing up to five million pounds were set up in the name of a Sharif family friend for “channelling” into Sharif’s business.

Babar alleged that present commerce minister Ishaq Dar had played a major role in opening fake bank accounts in the names of the members of a Pakistani family residing in England for channelling bank loans to Sharif’s business group.

The Independent report had alleged that the bank accounts, set up in the names of the Qazi family of Essex, were used to raise millions of pounds in loans which, as per the Pakistan police documents, were channelled into businesses owned by Sharif.

The paper added that the accounts were set up by one of Sharif’s closest ally and now a senior government figure.

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Meanwhile, the PPP has claimed that the three members of the Qazi family, in whose names the fake bank accounts were set up, were being held by the Pakistani intelligence agencies after their return to the country a couple of days ago.

“The Qazi familymembers are detained in a government guest house in Karachi and the intelligence agencies are trying to extract a statement from them in favour of the government,” PPP leader Munir Ahmed Khan said.

He said he feared that they might be harmed in the process of extracting a denial of the Independent story as, according to their information, a senior government official had earlier met the Qazi family in England to try to get a denial from them.

But the Qazi family had given a written permission and a recorded interview to the Independent for publishing the story, he said.