Hamad bin Jassim played no role in Nawaz's release: Musharraf
Former president said he had nothing to do with Hamad bin Jassim's meeting with Nawaz Sharif in jail
KARACHI: (Dunya News) – Former President General (r) Pervez Musharraf has on Friday said that Qatar had no role to play in Prime Minister (PM) Nawaz Sharif’s release from jail in 2000. When asked, he said he did not know anything about Qatari Prince Hamad bin Jassim’s meeting with Nawaz Sharif in jail, reported Dunya News.
Talking to Dunya News on ‘Dunya Kamran Khan Kay Saath’, Pervez Musharraf said that Qatar did not play any role at all in Nawaz Sharif’s deal with him that allowed the current PM to leave for Saudi Arabia. He said that his relations with Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber al-Thani were never good because during an Organisation of Islamic Countries (OIC) meeting, when Hamad was Qatar’s Foreign Minister, he had suggested India to become a member of OIC. Musharraf said that he had strongly resisted the move and threatened to leave the conference along with OIC. He said that this incident made the relations between him and Bin Jassim a bit sour.
Kamran Khan reminded Musharraf that the same crown prince of Qatar had visited Pakistan just six weeks after the dislodging of Nawaz Sharif’s government and had met the deposed PM in his jail. Musharraf replied that he had nothing to do with the meeting and never indulged into things as petty as checking the list of people meeting Nawaz Sharif. He said that Bin Jassim might have asked his chief of staff and the chief of staff would have allowed him to meet Nawaz without even asking him (Musharraf).
“Nobody had to play any role in that arrangement. I was like a younger brother to the former Saudi king and he personally requested me to release Nawaz. However, what Saudi king had said was a bit vague and I couldn’t comprehend it. So Saad Hariri, who is currently the Prime Minister of Lebanon, told me one day that Saudi king was a bit unhappy with me as I had not done something he had told me to do. I asked Saudi king what it was that I hadn’t done. It was then that Saudi king asked me the same thing in clearer words and it was arranged”, said Musharraf.
Musharraf alleged Saif ur-Rehman of having arranged the current deal between Qatari royal family and Nawaz Sharif. He said that even a kid on the street would know about the link but it was only the courts in Pakistan that were in dark, and needed proofs.
When asked about the current case in progress and Finance Minister Ishaq Dar’s affidavit to National Accountability Bureau (NAB) regarding Sharif family’s money-laundering, Pervez Musharraf said that no pressure was applied on Ishaq Dar to give that affidavit. He claimed that he never even asked NAB how far the case had proceeded. “I wasn’t even interested in that case. I was interested in the ‘helicopter hijacking case’ only because it was in that case that they (PM Nawaz) had put my life and the lives of other people on that plane in danger. It is now after all these years that Ishaq Dar claims he was forced to submit that affidavit”, he said.
Kamran Khan asked him if the government had any proofs against the Sharif family. Musharraf said that NAB was doing all these things and that he had no role in those investigations as he was actually busy governing the country.
