NICL scandal: Ex-FIA head accused of obstructing investigation

Waseem Ahmed allegedly prevented investigators from cooperating with UK authorities.

LAHORE:

The former head of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), Waseem Ahmed, is among those who have been asked by the organisation he led until last week to respond to allegations of obstructing the progress of the investigation of the National Insurance Company Ltd (NICL) scandal.

Other officials summoned to respond to the accusations include Ahmed’s personal secretary, both the current and former heads of the National Central Bureau (the Pakistani liaison with Interpol) and other investigating officers.

The investigation against Waseem Ahmed began after a former NCB official, Mirza Sultan Saleem, testified that he had been reprimanded and transferred out of the NCB by Ahmed, allegedly for sharing financial information about one of the principal accused in the case – Moonis Elahi – with the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) in Britain.

“How dare you exchange information with SOCA without my permission?” Ahmed is alleged to have said to Saleem.

“He was very furious,” said Saleem. “He was not ready to hear me out. He said that he had been reprimanded by Interior Minister Rehman Malik because of my actions. He asked me to leave the file (about Moonis Elahi’s UK account) and get lost.”

Saleem added that Ahmed had said: “Malik woke me up at 2.30 am, expressed his serious displeasure and said that it is an insult to me that information is being exchanged about Moonis Elahi.”

Moonis Elahi is a member of the Punjab Assembly from Gujrat, belonging to the Pakistan Muslim League Quaid, and the son of former Punjab chief minister Pervez Elahi.

Saleem was removed from his position at the NCB and later transferred to the National Accountability Bureau (NAB).

The FIA officials investigating the matter claim that Saleem’s statements and account of what happened have been verified by others who worked at the NCB at the time.

In a statement to be produced before the Supreme Court on April 14, FIA officials accuse the former director general of withholding letters that the FIA had written to UK authorities seeking information and cooperation, with the aim of slowing down the investigation into the NICL scam.

The letters were to be sent by the FIA, through the NCB, to SOCA in Britain. However, Waseem Ahmed withheld them for more than twenty days, according to the FIA affidavit.

FIA investigators eventually succeeded in securing the cooperation of the British authorities in freezing Moonis Elahi’s accounts in the UK.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 11^th,  2011.