After LHC, NAB cases against Sharifs become history

ISLAMABAD: Money laundering and huge bank loan cases against the Sharif family are history now even for the National Accountability Bureau, which has of late cleared the Finance Minister Ishaq Dar of the allegation of abetting the ruling family in these alleged illegalities.

The Sharifs though have already got themselves acquitted from the courts in these cases, and the clean chit given by NAB to Ishaq Dar also closes the chapter by dropping the allegation that Dar had abetted the Sharifs in obtaining loans and money laundering.

According to the NAB documents, one of the five allegations against Ishaq Dar pertains to his role in obtaining huge loans for the Sharifs.On this issue, the NAB concluded, “The available record shows that Ittefaq Group obtained loans from Hajveri Modarba (Pvt) Ltd. The charge on the accused (Ishaq Dar) was of abetment. No case for illegal/fraudulent loans has ever been made out against Ittefaq Group before any court of law. Therefore, there could be no case for abetment.”

The NAB document added, “The accused was also charged on the allegations of money laundering on behalf of Sharif Family in Hudaibya Engineering (Pvt) Ltd. However, the case was quashed by the Lahore High Court vide dated 11-03-2014.”

The NAB last week gave a clean chit to Ishaq Dar after 15 years long probe. During these long years, the allegations against Dar have been probed over half a dozen times and each time the recommendations were made to drop the case. However, for political reasons Dar’s case was dragged and not dropped.

In the year 2000, General (retd) Pervez Musharraf-led government had prepared a money laundering reference against Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leaders Nawaz Sharif and Shahbaz Sharif. The reference had said that the Sharif brothers had used the Hudaibya Paper Mills as a cover for money laundering during the late 1990s.

In another case, a petition filed in 1991 had accused Nawaz Sharif of laundering over $3 billion, mostly to the UK, where his two sons had acquired precious property. It had sought lifetime disqualification of Mr Sharif for alleged money laundering.The LHC, which had heard the case, dismissed the petition in 2015, declaring it inadmissible.