Top court lays out JIT in Panama Leaks case
The team comprises of six members, one each from NAB, SECP, SBP, ISI, MI and FIA
ISLAMABAD (Dunya News) – Three-member special bench of Supreme Court has formed a Joint Investigation Team on Friday, with a delay of eight days as per previous order, to probe Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s family in Panama Leaks case.
The team comprises of six members including one each from National Accountability Bureau (NAB), State Bank of Pakistan (SBP), Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Military Intelligence (MI) and Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) and Federal Investigation Agency (FIA).
Wajid Zia of Federal Investigation Agency will be leading the probe while his subordinates namely are Amir Aziz, an official of the SBP, Bilal Rasool, Executive Director of SECP and one representative each of Military Intelligence and ISI.
FILE PHOTOS: (L) Executive Director of SECP, Bilal Rasul (nephew of former governor of Punjab Mian Mohammad Azhar) (R) Head of the JIT, Zia Wajid of FIA
The joint team will be provided with a secretariat in Federal Judicial Academy. According to the details, Wajid Zia had served as the Director of Economic Crime Wing of the agency. As an expert on economic crime, he had led the Hajj scandal probe in 2011.
The three-member bench headed by Justice Ejaz Afzal Khan had earlier rejected the names of officials proposed by the institutions concerned.
The probe team would file a report to the apex court within two months after holding the premier and his family accountable for 13 questions raised by the top court during the trial that ran for almost four months.
Supreme Court had earlier released verdict in Panama Leaks case on April 20 after it was reserved on February 23 by a larger bench comprising of five judges.
Read the detailed verdict of the apex court issued last month
The questions that the joint team would be looking into include the following:
Question No 1: How were Gulf Steel Mills set up?
Question No 2: What happened with the returns of Gulf Steel Mills
Question No 3: How did the money earned from Gulf Steel Mills ended up in Jeddah, Qatar and Britain?
Question No 4: What were the reasons of selling Gulf Steel Mills?
Question No 5: Did the young Hassan Nawaz and Hussain Nawaz have resources enough to buy flats in London in the 90s?
Question No 6: Is the Qatari letter a reality or just a fabricated letter?
Question No 7: Who is the real owner of Nelson and Nescol?
Question No 8: How did the bearer certificates of the offshore companies turn into flats?
Question No 9: Where did Hassan Nawaz get the money from for a flagship company and business in London, while there is no transaction recorded to prove the flow of money?
Question No 10: How was Hill Metal Company set up?
Question No 11: How did Hussain Nawaz gift millions of rupees to his father and where did the money for those gifts come from?
Panama Papers had published a leak of documents belonging to Mossack Fonseca, a law firm in April 2016 creating an uproar in Pakistan among other countries. The leak was studied by International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and stated names of incumbent as well as former leaders of the world who owned shell companies.
Opposition parties in Pakistan saw offshore companies owned by daughter and two sons of PM Nawaz as means to either stash wealth in foreign accounts or purchase assets abroad.
The top court took up the case in October last year on petitions filed by Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, Awami Muslim League and Jamaat-e-Islami and reserved the verdict in February after conducting hearings on daily basis.
Detailed account on Panama Leaks, developments since April 2016 here
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