Minister for Information and Broadcasting Chaudhry Fawad Hussain on Tuesday said the press conference given by PML-N President Shehbaz Sharif to extol the testimony of Broadsheet owner Kaveh Moussavi betrays the former’s frustration in the wake of ongoing corruption cases against him.
The information minister’s statement comes after the leader of the opposition in the National Assembly expressed satisfaction over the unconditional apology to former premier Nawaz Sharif by the assets recovery firm Broadsheet’s CEO Kaveh Moussavi.
In a press conference, Shehbaz Sharif declared that today is a “very important” day in the history of the country, saying Moussavi's apology had come as a “tight slap on Prime Minister Imran Khan’s face”.
“…NAB-Niazi nexus along with Shahzad Akbar tried hard to prove corruption against Nawaz Sharif; however, they failed miserably,” he added.
'Moussavi himself accused by NAB'
Hitting back at the opposition leader, Fawad pointed out in a tweet that, ironically, Moussavi himself was an accused of the National Accountability Bureau.
The minister said the bank accounts to the expensive apartments in London spoke volumes about the corruption of Sharifs. All their tactics, including the fake affidavit in Calibri font, Maryam Safdar’s statement, and others were part of the narrative as to how to hide corruption.
Also read: Broadsheet CEO's revelations expose political witch-hunt: Shehbaz
Moussavi, in an interview with a private TV channel, said that he could “categorically” state after more than two decades of investigation that none of the money was related to either Nawaz or his family. He also apologised to the PML-N supremo.
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.
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.
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