Moussavi’s flip-flopping

Kaveh Moussavi — the owner of Broadsheet hired by NAB during the Musharraf era to probe corruption allegations against ex-PM Nawaz Sharif — has somehow managed to further embarrass the graft watchdog and all involved in contracting him. Moussavi recently apologised to Nawaz for “my being party to a scam and scandalous nonsense masquerading as the National Accountability Bureau”. He said Broadsheet had been unable to tie even “one rupee” of “plundered wealth” to Nawaz or his family, adding, “If anyone says otherwise they are lying.”

Moussavi’s most recent comments are in stark contrast to his claims for several years, where he claimed to have evidence of Nawaz’s corruption and even accused the Sharifs of trying to bribe him. However, in the interim, he has lost a case to the Sharifs and also spent time in prison for contempt of court in an unrelated case. But Moussavi appeared to pin the blame for his flip-flopping on NAB, accusing it of “fraudulent misrepresentation” and claiming that Broadsheet’s probe of Nawaz was “sabotaged” because the intention was a witch hunt. “When the facts change, I change my views,” he said. Taken at face value, this would suggest that he only recently came across proof that the evidence he previously claimed to have was falsified.

There is also an interesting side note on how PTI leaders are attacking Moussavi after years of praising him for ‘finding’ the evidence he now claims was fake. But there is some cause to believe he may have been lying along. After all, he previously claimed to have found, among other things, a Nawaz-linked account with $1 billion in it, which neither the PTI government nor “a general” were interested in. More significantly, he has long been accused of misrepresenting his and Broadsheet’s qualifications to even conduct such a financial crimes probe. But whatever the case, one question that remains unanswered is why not a single Musharraf era figure involved in throwing millions of dollars down the toilet by hiring Broadsheet has faced any consequences for what was either negligence, incompetence, or straight-up corruption.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 24^th, 2022.

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