This reference was used as a tool for political blackmail, but never with the will to punish wrongdoers
LAHORE: Tons of papers in SGS and Cotecna references lay in Geneva and were shown being moved on television by the then high commissioner to the UK, only to be displaced so that vital evidence was lost. This reference was used as a tool for political blackmail, but never with the will to punish wrongdoers because nobody wanted to set a precedent for a high-profile white crime to be carried to its logical and legal conclusion. What prevents the government to write a letter to the Swiss authorities that money stashed in Swiss banks is money on which taxes have not been paid?
The National Accountability Bureau seems to have become an entity that issues cleansing certificates to the corrupt mafia of the land. When references containing numerous charges are filed, things are then prepared to have a mistrial by design. If ever there is a will to punish an individual who has stolen several billions, all the state has to do is pick one solid case with irrefutable evidence and convict criminals as was done in the US trials of Al Capone and Leona Helmsley.
Have we forgotten how a few powerful lawyers have no hesitation in ridiculing and insulting a chief justice with a brief tenure, whose sole fault was that he tried to expedite the trial of a tycoon? The lives of the poor living in our country are of no consequence to these lawyers when all that matters is billions in profits.
Malik Tariq Ali
Published in The Express Tribune, November 28th, 2015.
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