Panama Leaks: Wajid Zia chairs JIT meeting to review TORs
JIT is supposed to complete probe within two months.
ISLAMABAD (Dunya News) - Federal Investigation Agency’s (FIA) Additional Director-General Wajid Zia is presiding over the meeting of the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) to review Terms of Reference for Panamagate probe in Islamabad.
Six members of JIT that include State Bank of Pakistan’s (SBP) Amer Aziz, Securities & Exchange Commission of Pakistan’s (SECP) Bilal Rasool, Inter-Services Intelligence’s (ISI) Brigadier Nauman Saeed, Military Intelligence’s (MI) Brigadier Kamran Khursheed and Director of National Accountability Bureau (NAB) Irfan Mangi are attending the meeting.
Sources told that JIT would seek assistance of experts from FIA and other departments to ensure fair investigation whereas it would also comprehensively review court’s decisions and available documents.
The investigation team will submit a progress report after every two weeks to the apex court whereas it is also supposed to complete probe within two months.
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?
On April 20, Justice Asif Saeed Khosa had announced Panama Leaks case decision comprising of 540 pages, saying that the court issued a split ruling calling for a joint investigation team. Two of the five judges went further, branding Sharif "dishonest" and saying he should be disqualified, but they were outnumbered.
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.
