Record of 'inadvertently' paid $1.5m missing, Broadsheet commission finds

Commission completes probe; terms 'inadvertent payment' act of deceit with the state

ISLAMABAD/ PAKISTAN:

A one-man commission comprising Justice (retd) Sheikh Azmat Saeed on Monday completed its investigation into the payment made to the British-based asset recovery firm Broadsheet LLC.

The Broadsheet Commission completed its job in a span of six weeks and submitted its report related to the findings of the probe to the PM Office.

Sources told The Express Tribune that the findings have revealed that the record of money transfer worth $1.5 million paid “inadvertently” to a company in 2008 was missing.

The sources said the Broadsheet Commission report and the relevant record comprising 500 pages has revealed who made the agreement with the firm and under what circumstances.

They said that the payment of $1.5 million to the Broadsheet had been made “inadvertently” and added that the record of the amount was missing.

Terming the payment suspicious, the commission termed it an act of deceit with the state. It observed that the files regarding the payment disappeared from the ministries of finance and law as well as from the office of the attorney general.

Moreover, the documentation in the Pakistan High Commission in London pertaining to the case was also found to be missing.

The commission recorded the statements of 24 witnesses and acquired the details of the case through the documents submitted by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB). One female legal consultant despite being summoned did not appear before it.

The authority also directed NAB to unseal the record of Swiss cases against PPP Co-Chairman Asif Ali Zardari and asked the anti-graft establishment to review it.

The record of Swiss cases against Zardari is present in the NAB’s storeroom.

The Broadsheet LLC was incorporated in the Isle of Man to help Pervez Musharraf's government and the then newly established NAB to track down foreign assets purchased by Pakistanis allegedly through their ill-gotten wealth.

Also read: Govt notifies Broadsheet commission

After NAB terminated the contract in 2003, Broadsheet LLC and another company involved as a third party filed for damages in a United Kingdom court.

It claimed that Pakistan owed them money according to the terms agreed upon since the government was taking action to confiscate some of the assets they had identified, including the Avenfield property owned by the family of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif.

The companies' claims against Pakistan were held valid by an arbitration court in 2016 and later by a United Kingdom high court that gave an award of over $28 million against Pakistan last year.

Broadsheet LLC arbitration decision came in 2016 – the same year when the Panama Papers had rocked Pakistan. However, nobody knew about it until a court in the UK ordered authorities to deduct $28.7 million from Pakistan High Commission’s account in London.