Incriminating material available against Shehbaz, NAB tells LHC

Graft buster requests court to dismiss pre-arrest bail plea of opposition leader

LAHORE: The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) on Tuesday informed the Lahore High Court (LHC) that there was a sufficient incriminating material available that connected former Punjab chief minister Shehbaz Sharif with corruption and corrupt practices and requested the court to dismiss his bail plea.

NAB submitted its detailed reply before the LHC to a petition filed by Shehbaz for bail in assets beyond means and money laundering cases. A division bench headed by Justice Tariq Abbasi had already granted pre-arrest bail to Shehbaz until June 17 in these cases.

The NAB reply denied the version of Shehbaz Sharif in his bail petition. NAB said it was a futile attempt on the part of the petitioner, Shehbaz Sharif, to “deflect the kind attention of this court” from his “illicit enrichment, huge network of money laundering and accumulation of huge business empire beyond known sources of income which is the subject matter of the instant case”.

The “evasive and bolting” conduct of the petitioner with “bald denials and false parallel stories”, while hurling unfounded allegations against NAB in the absence of any extraordinary circumstances made his case fit for the exercise of constitutional jurisdiction by this court for not granting him the pre-arrest bail.

NAB said that the petitioner had not identified anything on record to show or substantiate the “false, evasive, vague and unfounded allegations of malice or mala fide on the part of the answering respondents [NAB] while praying for the grant of extraordinary concession of bail before arrest”.

The NAB said that the matter was initiated in pursuance of a suspicious transaction report disseminated by the Financial Monitoring Unit (FMU) on January 12, 2018 when “the party/family of the petitioner was sitting at the helm of affairs of the Federation of Pakistan as well as of the Provincial Government”.

“At that time the petitioner himself was the Chief Executive of the Province of Punjab. Hence the false allegations of mala fide and political motivation cannot withstand in such circumstances. Hence, the false and self-serving assertions of mala fide … have been belied by the facts delineated above.”

The NAB reply pointed out that there was another complaint against Shehbaz and others, relating to accumulation of assets disproportionate to their known sources of income. It denied Shehbaz’s assertion that NAB had failed to collect evidence of any corruption and corrupt practices in the cases against him.

“The instant case is a classic case of illicit enrichment, obtaining unlawful benefits, assets disproportionate to known sources of income and a huge network of money laundering. It is humbly submitted that at the time of the petitioner’s arrest in Ashiana case and Ramzan Sugar Mills Case, the instant inquiry of assets beyond means and money laundering was at very initial stage as submitted in replies to Para 32 and 40, amongst others,” the reply added.

“The facts regarding multiple transactions of money laundering by the petitioner in collusion with his co-accused family members and employees were not discovered at that stage. As submitted in report, the facts regarding fictitious telegraphic transfers, fake loans shown by the family members from the employees of the companies, setting up of Benami companies by the petitioner had also not surfaced at the time of his arrest in other cases.”

NAB said that specific facts and evidence on the charges of assets disproportionate to known sources of income and the various methods of commission of offence of the money laundering by the petitioner and his co-accused persons had been established.

Shahbaz accumulated assets disproportionate to known sources of income and also developed an organised network of money laundering in connivance with his family members, benamidars, front persons, employees, associates and money changers, NAB told the court.

Earlier in his pre-arrest bail, Shehbaz, had contended that the power of arrest was permissive but not obligatory and that the arrest was not desirable even in the most heinous offences so long as the accused cooperated and kept joining the investigation.

The opposition leader in the National Assembly had denied NAB’s allegation, contending that he had been implicated in forged cases merely to humiliate him. He said that he had nothing to do with these charges and that he was being politically victimised.