Panamagate probe: PM’s son-in-law testifies before JIT

Capt (retd) Safdar calls case a conspiracy against Pakistan

ISLAMABAD: The joint investigation team (JIT) probing the offshore assets of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his family questioned on Saturday his son-in-law Captain (retd) Safdar, who denounced the entire Panamagate case as a ‘conspiracy against Pakistan’.

“The Panamagate case is a conspiracy not just against Nawaz Sharif but against the integrity and ideology of Pakistan,” he told reporters outside the Federal Judicial Academy (FJA) where he was questioned. “This ongoing accountability is not aimed at the prime minister… it is aimed at the two-nation theory,” Safdar said.

The prime minister’s son-in-law was the fifth member of the ruling Sharif family to testify before the JIT. Premier Nawaz himself, his sons Hassan and Hussain Nawaz, and his brother Punjab Chief Minister Shehbaz Sharif have already recorded their statements with the probe panel.



While speaking to the media, Safdar accused Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf Chairman Imran Khan of working on a foreign agenda at the behest of Pakistan’s enemies by pursuing the Panamagate case against the premier and his family. “I warn you [Imran], do not indulge in conspiracies against the ideology of the country or else history will not remember you with good words,” he said.

Regarding his questioning, Safdar claimed that “even the JIT investigators were not sure what all this fuss was about.”

“It seems like someone, after hearing the story the entire night, woke up in the morning and asked whether the central character was a man or a woman,” he said when asked about the nature of questions he was asked.



Safdar claimed the JIT members were receiving “chits and files containing questions from somewhere outside” during the course of his interrogation. “I answered all their questions and I even posed some questions to them,” he said.

“I asked that while I, as the son-in-law of the prime minister, was being questioned about my 10 marla ancestral home, did anyone have the courage to question the owners of Surrey Palace or the person responsible for the Kargil tragedy,” he added while referring to Pakistan Peoples Party Co-Chairman Asif Ali Zardari and former president Pervez Musharraf.

“But, still I am happy that I am serving my leader Nawaz Sharif in this way,” said Safdar. “Nawaz Sharif says a JIT of 20 million Pakistanis will give Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz an even greater mandate that the current one in the next general election.”