An admiral, an IGP arrested in Pakistan
November 24, 2013
Only Admiral Mansurul Haq and former Inspector General Police Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa province Malik Naveed have till date been arrested in Pakistan for minting money in arms purchase deals, although a top political personality was also accused in 2010 by a French newspaper of having received millions of dollars in kickbacks from the 1994 sale of three French submarines to his country’s navy.
Ex-IG Police Malik Naveed was arrested Wednesday on a November 24, 2010 National Accountability Bureau reference filed with reference to a Rs 6 billion shady arms deal with a Chinese firm and for spearheading an illegal hiring exercise.
As far as the political personality is concerned, “Daily Liberation” of France had stated three years ago that he was guilty of receiving $ 4.3 million kickbacks from the 1994 sale of three Agosta 90 submarines for 826 million Euros.
According to the French newspaper, documents sent to the National Accountability Bureau by the British authorities in April 2001 had indicated that the political personality had received several payments into his Swiss bank accounts from a Lebanese businessman.
While the accused political personality remains free, a former Pak Navy chief and ex-chairman Pakistan National Shipping Corporation, Admiral Mansurul-Haq, was hand-cuffed in 2001 in the US for his part in this deal.
Mansurul-Haq was retired and arrested in 1997 during the second stint of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, but the matter was somehow shelved.
The admiral was apprehended again on request of the Musharraf regime in 2001 by the US government on charges of receiving commission as Chief of Naval Staff in the Agosta class submarine deals, was extradited and tried in a military court.
He was also alleged to have been involved in a deal made through Pakistan National Shipping Corporation, which had reportedly caused the loss of $3 million to the exchequer. He was sentenced to seven-year rigorous imprisonment in 2004 and fined Rs 2 million.
However, Admiral Mansur had gone on to win the case pertaining to the Pakistan National Shipping Corporation charges after remaining under arrest for an extensive period. The court released him and made a strict statement that people should not be harassed by military courts.
Finally in January 2012, the National Accountability Bureau had accepted an unprecedented offer from Mansurul Haq to pay about Rs 457.5 million (US$7.5 million) – an equivalent of 1,270 years of salary of an admiral or the two-year salary of all naval personnel in Pakistan – in exchange for his freedom and closure of all corruption cases.
Research conducted by “The News International” reveals that suspicious weapons deals in the world have till date made a president, two prime ministers and a defence minister lose their jobs.
Although countless defence-related scams continue to shake nearly every country of the world frequently since 1914, the way law has proceeded promptly in these nations to apprehend even the most invincible personalities can be gauged from the fact that an Italian president, two Japanese Prime ministers and an Indian Defence Minister had to lose their prized offices after they were found guilty of accepting bribes in shady armament contracts.
The first Japanese Premier to resign on this count was Admiral Yamamoto Gonnohyoe. Although Yamamoto was not directly implicated in the Siemens Scandal of 1914, he was primarily probed because he was also the Navy Minister concurrently.
In 1914, Messrs Vickers had offered the Japanese authorities a more lucrative deal, involving 25 per cent kickbacks, with 40,000 Yen for Vice Admiral Yawara, the then Chief of the Japanese Navy Technical Department dealing with procurement issues.
In this scam, Admiral Fuji of the Japanese Navy Procurement Office had also confessed to have received 0.2 million Yens from Messrs Vickers.
The story was somehow leaked to the “Reuters” news agency, which flashed it across the world just ahead of World War I.
The second Japanese Premier who was sent packing on bribery issue in a defence scam was Kakuei Tanaka. After the surfacing of the notorious Lockheed Scandal, the sitting Japanese Prime Minister Tanaka was forced to resign in 1974.
In 1976, he was arrested for taking $ three million bribe from the US-based aerospace company Messrs Lockheed. His Transport Minister was also convicted on similar charges.
The accusations against the Tanaka regime had also led to the indictments of 16 leading Japanese politicians. Premier Tanaka was convicted in a lower court.
Former Italian President Giovanni Leone also had to resign in 1978, after charges of accepting $ two million pay-offs from the Italian branch of Messrs Lockheed were levelled against him and his Prime Minister Mariano Rumor.
The scandal in Italy involved the purchase of C-130 Hercules transport planes by the Italian Air Force.
These high-profile resignations had surfaced after US Senator Frank Church had concluded in 1976 that the Lockheed board had bribed the Japanese, West German, Dutch, Saudi Arabian and Italian governments to guarantee contracts for procurement of its military aircraft.
In 1976, it was publicly revealed that Lockheed had paid $22 million in bribes to powerful foreign officials.
In US, Lockheed’s Chairman Daniel Haughton and President Carl Kotchian also had to quit as a consequence.
Apart from the Lockheed scam, the United States has also witnessed various defence procurement rip-offs like the 2005 Cunningham scandal, in which defence contractors Mitchel Wade and Brent Wilkes had paid bribes to members of Congress and officials in the US Defense Department, in return for political favours in the form of Pentagon contracts. The contractors were blamed for illegally winning $ 80 million contracts in a just a decade’s time.
Most notable amongst the recipients of the bribes was the California Congressman Duke Cunningham, who had pled guilty to receiving over $ 2.3 million. Legislators Virgil Goode and Katherine Harris were also found guilty of pocketing $ 90,000 and $ 32,000 graft respectively.
In 2007, US Army’s top procurement official, Claude Bolton, had to resign after Army leaders had decided to analyze how Bolton’s department ran its $ 4 billion-a-year procurement operation in Afghanistan, Iraq and Kuwait.
Earlier, a US Army Major John Cockerham was accused of allegedly taking $ 9.6 million in bribes from contractors in Kuwait.
A West German Defence Minister, Franz Josef Strauss, was implicated in the Lockheed scam too. He was accused of taking $ 10 million from Lockheed.
In Netherlands, the then Prime Minister Joop had ordered inquiry against Queen Juliana’s husband Prince Berhard for receiving $ 1.1 million kickbacks to ensure that the Lockheed planes would win the contract, though the Royalty had kept on denying these accusations till his death.
These events within Europe had finally led the European Commission to issue a Green Paper in 2004 on Defence Procurement to improve the transparency levels.
A proposal for establishing a common defence market within Europe was hence proposed so that the member states could utilize their 180 billion Euro combined defence budgets in a desired fashion sans any dubious procurement deals.
In Saudi Arabia, Lockheed had paid $ 106 million to Saudi Arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi in commissions to win over the concerned officials.
In India, former Indian Defence Minister George Fernandes was forced to resign in the 2006 Barak Missile Scandal. In August 2009, Fernandes was also linked to the infamous 2002 “coffin scam” of the Kargil war, along with two retired Indian Army officials and one serving officer.
Noted politician R.K. Jain was arrested for his role in the Barak affair, while a former Indian Navy Chief Admiral Sushil Kumar was also implicated in the con game.
The Barak Scandal involved the purchase of missiles by India from Israel.
In 2000, contracts had been signed by India to procure seven Barak systems at a total cost $199.50 million and 200 missiles at a cost of $ 69.13 million.
In the early eighties, an arms purchase called the HDW German Submarine deal had erupted into a scandal and assassinated Indian Premier Indira Gandhi’s younger son Sanjay was implicated for accepting graft to the tune of Rs 200 million.
In 1986, Indira Gandhi’s elder son Rajiv Gandhi and his aides were also accused of taking more than Rs 640 million in bribes for awarding a contract to the Swedish company Messrs Bofors. The Bofors arms procurement affair had contributed to the Congress party’s defeat in an election in 1989.
A couple of years ago, dozens of Indian army officers were found involved in illegally selling of arms and weapons.
In July 2011, these officers, mostly lieutenant colonels and colonels, had faced a court of inquiry following a public suit filed in the Rajasthan High Court by an advocate who said that these officials were guilty of selling their private weapons to people of dubious character.
In recent years, various high-ranking Indian military officers like Chief of Army Staff, General V K Singh, Lt Gen Surendra Kumar Sahni, Lt Gen S K Dahiya, Maj Gen Anand Swaroop, Maj-Gen SP Sinha, Maj Gen Anand Kapoor, Maj Gen Gur Iqbal Singh Multani and Brigadier Guredeep Singh etc have been found involved in corruption of various forms.
In January 2013, according to an esteemed Indian newspaper “The Hindu,” the Central Bureau of Investigation had busted a racket thriving on commissions made from supply to ordnance factories.
Investigations showed that a woman named Subi Mally, based in Mumbai, had been mediating for deals between industrial units such and ordnance factories on commission basis, causing loss to the government.
In June 2009, another arms corruption scandal had threatening to delay India’s $ 30 billion plan to modernize its military to counter border security threats.
The scandal involved seven companies alleged of paying bribes to win contracts worth $ two billion. New Delhi had immediately halted all of the deals involving the seven companies hailing from Israel, Poland and Singapore.
In the Czech Republic, investigations were carried out in 2010 with reference to a cross-border defense-contract scandal.
The Czech and Austrian police had launched separate corruption probes against an Austrian firm, alleged of paying hefty provisions to Czech politicians in return for a defense deal involving purchase of armoured carriers from the US-owned form having offices in Vienna.
Similarly, a report appearing in Australian Press on March 19, 2010, has blasted a hole in Aussie government’s plan to acquire a fleet of 12 new submarines.
Among the other international conglomerates blamed for inking suspicious defence deals, the US Information Systems giant Messrs Unisys is on the top.
In 1986, the US Justice Department had started an investigation of fraud in defense procurement, known as Operation Ill Wind. The investigation found that this Fortune 500 Company had committed fraud in the process of obtaining defense contracts. T
he result was the initiation of a criminal conviction for the company, a dozen of its employees and consultants. Seven companies, nine government officials and 42 individuals were prosecuted as a result of that investigation, with Unisys’ fines and penalties totaling up to $ 190 million.
A British defence company, Messrs BAE Systems, has also been charged in recent times with allegations of greasing the palms of African and East European officials.
The inquiries against BAE Systems were related to allegations of corruption in deals with South Africa, Tanzania and the Czech Republic, though an inquiry into the alleged bribery of Saudi officials was abandoned as the probe had embarrassed the Saudi Royal Family.
In South Africa, a senior official of the African National Congress was arrested in 2001 on charges that he had profited from a controversial multi-billion dollar arms deal in 1999.
According to BBC’s report of October 3, 2001, Tony Yengeni, the ANC’s chief whip in parliament, was then charged with corruption, fraud, perjury and forgery on allegations that he received a luxury car in return for ensuring the deal went ahead.
Ex-IG Police Malik Naveed was arrested Wednesday on a November 24, 2010 National Accountability Bureau reference filed with reference to a Rs 6 billion shady arms deal with a Chinese firm and for spearheading an illegal hiring exercise.
As far as the political personality is concerned, “Daily Liberation” of France had stated three years ago that he was guilty of receiving $ 4.3 million kickbacks from the 1994 sale of three Agosta 90 submarines for 826 million Euros.
According to the French newspaper, documents sent to the National Accountability Bureau by the British authorities in April 2001 had indicated that the political personality had received several payments into his Swiss bank accounts from a Lebanese businessman.
While the accused political personality remains free, a former Pak Navy chief and ex-chairman Pakistan National Shipping Corporation, Admiral Mansurul-Haq, was hand-cuffed in 2001 in the US for his part in this deal.
Mansurul-Haq was retired and arrested in 1997 during the second stint of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, but the matter was somehow shelved.
The admiral was apprehended again on request of the Musharraf regime in 2001 by the US government on charges of receiving commission as Chief of Naval Staff in the Agosta class submarine deals, was extradited and tried in a military court.
He was also alleged to have been involved in a deal made through Pakistan National Shipping Corporation, which had reportedly caused the loss of $3 million to the exchequer. He was sentenced to seven-year rigorous imprisonment in 2004 and fined Rs 2 million.
However, Admiral Mansur had gone on to win the case pertaining to the Pakistan National Shipping Corporation charges after remaining under arrest for an extensive period. The court released him and made a strict statement that people should not be harassed by military courts.
Finally in January 2012, the National Accountability Bureau had accepted an unprecedented offer from Mansurul Haq to pay about Rs 457.5 million (US$7.5 million) – an equivalent of 1,270 years of salary of an admiral or the two-year salary of all naval personnel in Pakistan – in exchange for his freedom and closure of all corruption cases.
Research conducted by “The News International” reveals that suspicious weapons deals in the world have till date made a president, two prime ministers and a defence minister lose their jobs.
Although countless defence-related scams continue to shake nearly every country of the world frequently since 1914, the way law has proceeded promptly in these nations to apprehend even the most invincible personalities can be gauged from the fact that an Italian president, two Japanese Prime ministers and an Indian Defence Minister had to lose their prized offices after they were found guilty of accepting bribes in shady armament contracts.
The first Japanese Premier to resign on this count was Admiral Yamamoto Gonnohyoe. Although Yamamoto was not directly implicated in the Siemens Scandal of 1914, he was primarily probed because he was also the Navy Minister concurrently.
In 1914, Messrs Vickers had offered the Japanese authorities a more lucrative deal, involving 25 per cent kickbacks, with 40,000 Yen for Vice Admiral Yawara, the then Chief of the Japanese Navy Technical Department dealing with procurement issues.
In this scam, Admiral Fuji of the Japanese Navy Procurement Office had also confessed to have received 0.2 million Yens from Messrs Vickers.
The story was somehow leaked to the “Reuters” news agency, which flashed it across the world just ahead of World War I.
The second Japanese Premier who was sent packing on bribery issue in a defence scam was Kakuei Tanaka. After the surfacing of the notorious Lockheed Scandal, the sitting Japanese Prime Minister Tanaka was forced to resign in 1974.
In 1976, he was arrested for taking $ three million bribe from the US-based aerospace company Messrs Lockheed. His Transport Minister was also convicted on similar charges.
The accusations against the Tanaka regime had also led to the indictments of 16 leading Japanese politicians. Premier Tanaka was convicted in a lower court.
Former Italian President Giovanni Leone also had to resign in 1978, after charges of accepting $ two million pay-offs from the Italian branch of Messrs Lockheed were levelled against him and his Prime Minister Mariano Rumor.
The scandal in Italy involved the purchase of C-130 Hercules transport planes by the Italian Air Force.
These high-profile resignations had surfaced after US Senator Frank Church had concluded in 1976 that the Lockheed board had bribed the Japanese, West German, Dutch, Saudi Arabian and Italian governments to guarantee contracts for procurement of its military aircraft.
In 1976, it was publicly revealed that Lockheed had paid $22 million in bribes to powerful foreign officials.
In US, Lockheed’s Chairman Daniel Haughton and President Carl Kotchian also had to quit as a consequence.
Apart from the Lockheed scam, the United States has also witnessed various defence procurement rip-offs like the 2005 Cunningham scandal, in which defence contractors Mitchel Wade and Brent Wilkes had paid bribes to members of Congress and officials in the US Defense Department, in return for political favours in the form of Pentagon contracts. The contractors were blamed for illegally winning $ 80 million contracts in a just a decade’s time.
Most notable amongst the recipients of the bribes was the California Congressman Duke Cunningham, who had pled guilty to receiving over $ 2.3 million. Legislators Virgil Goode and Katherine Harris were also found guilty of pocketing $ 90,000 and $ 32,000 graft respectively.
In 2007, US Army’s top procurement official, Claude Bolton, had to resign after Army leaders had decided to analyze how Bolton’s department ran its $ 4 billion-a-year procurement operation in Afghanistan, Iraq and Kuwait.
Earlier, a US Army Major John Cockerham was accused of allegedly taking $ 9.6 million in bribes from contractors in Kuwait.
A West German Defence Minister, Franz Josef Strauss, was implicated in the Lockheed scam too. He was accused of taking $ 10 million from Lockheed.
In Netherlands, the then Prime Minister Joop had ordered inquiry against Queen Juliana’s husband Prince Berhard for receiving $ 1.1 million kickbacks to ensure that the Lockheed planes would win the contract, though the Royalty had kept on denying these accusations till his death.
These events within Europe had finally led the European Commission to issue a Green Paper in 2004 on Defence Procurement to improve the transparency levels.
A proposal for establishing a common defence market within Europe was hence proposed so that the member states could utilize their 180 billion Euro combined defence budgets in a desired fashion sans any dubious procurement deals.
In Saudi Arabia, Lockheed had paid $ 106 million to Saudi Arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi in commissions to win over the concerned officials.
In India, former Indian Defence Minister George Fernandes was forced to resign in the 2006 Barak Missile Scandal. In August 2009, Fernandes was also linked to the infamous 2002 “coffin scam” of the Kargil war, along with two retired Indian Army officials and one serving officer.
Noted politician R.K. Jain was arrested for his role in the Barak affair, while a former Indian Navy Chief Admiral Sushil Kumar was also implicated in the con game.
The Barak Scandal involved the purchase of missiles by India from Israel.
In 2000, contracts had been signed by India to procure seven Barak systems at a total cost $199.50 million and 200 missiles at a cost of $ 69.13 million.
In the early eighties, an arms purchase called the HDW German Submarine deal had erupted into a scandal and assassinated Indian Premier Indira Gandhi’s younger son Sanjay was implicated for accepting graft to the tune of Rs 200 million.
In 1986, Indira Gandhi’s elder son Rajiv Gandhi and his aides were also accused of taking more than Rs 640 million in bribes for awarding a contract to the Swedish company Messrs Bofors. The Bofors arms procurement affair had contributed to the Congress party’s defeat in an election in 1989.
A couple of years ago, dozens of Indian army officers were found involved in illegally selling of arms and weapons.
In July 2011, these officers, mostly lieutenant colonels and colonels, had faced a court of inquiry following a public suit filed in the Rajasthan High Court by an advocate who said that these officials were guilty of selling their private weapons to people of dubious character.
In recent years, various high-ranking Indian military officers like Chief of Army Staff, General V K Singh, Lt Gen Surendra Kumar Sahni, Lt Gen S K Dahiya, Maj Gen Anand Swaroop, Maj-Gen SP Sinha, Maj Gen Anand Kapoor, Maj Gen Gur Iqbal Singh Multani and Brigadier Guredeep Singh etc have been found involved in corruption of various forms.
In January 2013, according to an esteemed Indian newspaper “The Hindu,” the Central Bureau of Investigation had busted a racket thriving on commissions made from supply to ordnance factories.
Investigations showed that a woman named Subi Mally, based in Mumbai, had been mediating for deals between industrial units such and ordnance factories on commission basis, causing loss to the government.
In June 2009, another arms corruption scandal had threatening to delay India’s $ 30 billion plan to modernize its military to counter border security threats.
The scandal involved seven companies alleged of paying bribes to win contracts worth $ two billion. New Delhi had immediately halted all of the deals involving the seven companies hailing from Israel, Poland and Singapore.
In the Czech Republic, investigations were carried out in 2010 with reference to a cross-border defense-contract scandal.
The Czech and Austrian police had launched separate corruption probes against an Austrian firm, alleged of paying hefty provisions to Czech politicians in return for a defense deal involving purchase of armoured carriers from the US-owned form having offices in Vienna.
Similarly, a report appearing in Australian Press on March 19, 2010, has blasted a hole in Aussie government’s plan to acquire a fleet of 12 new submarines.
Among the other international conglomerates blamed for inking suspicious defence deals, the US Information Systems giant Messrs Unisys is on the top.
In 1986, the US Justice Department had started an investigation of fraud in defense procurement, known as Operation Ill Wind. The investigation found that this Fortune 500 Company had committed fraud in the process of obtaining defense contracts. T
he result was the initiation of a criminal conviction for the company, a dozen of its employees and consultants. Seven companies, nine government officials and 42 individuals were prosecuted as a result of that investigation, with Unisys’ fines and penalties totaling up to $ 190 million.
A British defence company, Messrs BAE Systems, has also been charged in recent times with allegations of greasing the palms of African and East European officials.
The inquiries against BAE Systems were related to allegations of corruption in deals with South Africa, Tanzania and the Czech Republic, though an inquiry into the alleged bribery of Saudi officials was abandoned as the probe had embarrassed the Saudi Royal Family.
In South Africa, a senior official of the African National Congress was arrested in 2001 on charges that he had profited from a controversial multi-billion dollar arms deal in 1999.
According to BBC’s report of October 3, 2001, Tony Yengeni, the ANC’s chief whip in parliament, was then charged with corruption, fraud, perjury and forgery on allegations that he received a luxury car in return for ensuring the deal went ahead.
