NCA decision

NCA said it found no proof of illegality, thus under principle of presumption of innocence, Shehbaz, son are innocent

The government is scrambling to save face as Shehbaz Sharif and the PML-N celebrate after his ‘acquittal’ in a corruption case in the UK. Adviser to the Prime Minister on Accountability Shehzad Akbar is now trying to claim that the British National Crime Agency’s request for the court to unfreeze Shehbaz’s accounts does not amount to an acquittal or proof of innocence. Akbar, a British-educated lawyer, should know that it actually does. The NCA said it found no proof of illegality, thus under the principle of presumption of innocence, Shehbaz and his son are innocent.

Unfortunately, while innocent until proven guilty is a near-universal legal principle, recent years have seen accountability investigations in Pakistan go the other way, with ‘suspects’ being burdened with providing proof of innocence in response to sometimes outlandish accusations by various accountability bodies and politicians. Even as Akbar tried to distance the Pakistan government from the case, he also tried to split hairs by saying that NCA’s initial freezing of Shehbaz and his son’s accounts was part of an investigation rather than a legal case. His argument was essentially that it could not be called an acquittal because the investigation was never formally turned into a court case.

But the NCA appeared to have only begun investigating after NAB and the Assets Recovery Unit led by Akbar wrote a letter written to the British agency in 2019. Among the claims was money laundering of over Rs35 billion through accounts and transactions in Pakistan, the UK, and the UAE. The NCA probe found no proof of criminal conduct, meaning that either this was a false accusation or the British agency is incompetent. Akbar’s claims would suggest he believes it is the latter.

As for the wide use of the term acquittal, Akbar is right in that a formal acquittal would first require a formal court case, but, as we previously noted, he is wrong to accuse the duo of legal wrongdoing when British investigators found no evidence to support the claim. After all, if Akbar or the government had any strong incriminating evidence, it would already have been shared with the NCA, and judging by the decision, rejected because it did not meet the level of scrutiny required by British law.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 29^th, 2021.

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