Altaf loses court battle for London property

London High Court rules Altaf not a beneficiary of trust controlling properties in UK

KARACHI:

The Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) won a long-running legal battle against its founder, Altaf Hussain, over the ownership of London properties worth £10 million, MQM-P Convener Dr Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui confirmed on Monday.

Addressing a press conference, along with senior party leaders Dr Farooq Sattar, Mustafa Kamal, Nasreen Jalil, at the party headquarters, Siddiqui hailed a ruling of the London High Court’s a victory for the party.

Media reports said that the Insolvency and Companies Court (ICC), the properties division of the high court, ruled that the MQM-P and its members were the rightful beneficiaries of the trusts, controlling the properties.

The properties, valued at an estimated Rs3.4 billion, remained under the control of the MQM founder until now. The court ruled that Altaf had resigned from the party after his August 2016 speech, therefore, he was no longer a beneficiary.

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The MQM-P has six properties, while one property had been sold and all of them were now owned by the MQM-P, the party leader said. “These properties will be used for families of martyrs, missing workers and prisoners,” Siddiqui added.

Siddiqui confirmed that Barrister Nazar Muhammad, MQM-P counsel, conveyed the details of the verdict by the telephone from London and congratulated the MQM-Pakistan on the success of the case.

“It has now been established globally that MQM-Pakistan is real MQM and there are no branch or faction,” he said. “These properties are the property of the people …We will use this money for the families of martyrs and cases of missing and arrested workers.”

He said that there was a collective decision of the top leadership of MQM-P that “we will neither use this money for personal nor for political purposes”. He added that a part of it would also be given to the family of martyr Dr Imran Farooq.