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Tuesday March 19, 2024

PTI govt has nothing to do with Broadsheet matter, PM Imran Khan says

Premier terms the foreign funding case against the PTI as one born out of malafide intent and said he trusts the ECP

By Web Desk
January 22, 2021

Prime Minister Imran Khan has said that the PTI government has "nothing to do" with the Broadsheet issue as the deal was forged by former president Pervez Musharraf.

His remarks came in a television interview which was aired on Friday.

Referring to the Broadsheet agreement, the prime minister said that the asset recovery firm found Nawaz Sharif's assets worth $800 million "and a court declared that assets worth $100 million really were owned by the former prime minister".

He said that the government was bound under the agreement, to pay the firm and if they did not pay, a day's interest would have amounted to 5,000 pounds.

The prime minister termed the foreign funding case against the PTI as one born out of malafide intent and said that he trusts the Election Commission scrutiny committee probing the matter.

Speaking of the increased power tariff, he said that it was done "so that the country does not fall further into debt".

A day earlier, the government named retired Justice Sheikh Azmat Saeed as the head of the committee probing the Broadsheet case and gave him the authority to add whomever he wants to the committee.

The Opposition parties have voiced major reservations against the move, owing to Saeed's past appointments.

The Broadsheet issue

Former President Pervez Musharraf had hired British firm Broadsheet in 1999 to recover the properties of Nawaz Sharif, Asif Ali Zardari, and Benazir Bhutto among others.

However, the agreement was terminated by National Accountability Bureau in 2003 after which the firm had filed a case against the Bureau in the arbitration court.

The court had ruled against NAB in August 2016 and ordered it to pay a fine. On December 31, Pakistan made a payment of $28.706 million (Rs4.59 billion) to the British firm Broadsheet LLC after losing the long-running litigation at the London High Court.

In recent days, more revelations have come to light regarding the Broadsheet case, after which the government decided to investigate the matter.