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Thursday March 28, 2024

Third JIT report: Plenty of work still needs to be done

By Tariq Butt
June 22, 2017

ISLAMABAD: The third and the second last periodic report about its probe against Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his family members the Panama Joint Investigation Team (JIT) will present before the special implementation bench on Thursday may be able to partially connect the dots to shape up its conclusive findings.

The fortnight that the JIT will cover in its fresh report saw extremely high-profile leaders including the prime minister and Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif appearing before it, spending over seven hours altogether.

Obviously, its third report will encapsulate the premier’s written statement that he delivered to the JIT and the question-answer session with it apart from its discussion with the chief minister.

After the three-hour long interview, Nawaz Sharif said: “I have faced repeated ruthless accountability; puppet games have to come to an end now; if the special-agenda factories, trampling the mandate of the people, do not wind up their business now, then not only the Constitution and democracy, but national security would also be jeopardized; we will not let the wheel of history turn in the opposite direction; the days of games behind the scenes are now over.”

As the JIT inched close to its deadline, it has started summoning top most government leaders. Capt (retd) Safdar has also been called but he had requested the JIT to delay his appearance due to his absence from Pakistan. His request was turned down. Finance Minister Senator Ishaq Dar and a couple of other prominent members of the Sharif family are likely to be summoned by the JIT as well. Hussain and Hassan already had exhaustive sessions with the JIT.

If the JIT sticks to the sixty-day timeline given to it by the Supreme Court, it will submit its last fortnightly report to the special panel of judges on July 7. The bench has directed the JIT more than once to finish its job within the prescribed period and made clear that it would not give more time.

The apex court has expressed satisfaction over the two previous reports that the JIT, which is drowned in deep controversy due to its several actions, submitted to it. These findings have not been publicly released.

It is not clear how far the JIT reports, produced so far, will be useful or futile in getting to the bottom of the charges against the Sharif family. However, what is crystal clear is that the litany of very grave allegations the JIT has leveled against the Prime Minister House, the Intelligence Bureau, the Security Exchange Commission of Pakistan, the Federal Law and Justice Ministry and the National Accountability Bureau has ignited a storm and impelled these organizations to strongly rebut the assertions.

A confrontation like situation has cropped up between the JIT and these important government institutions because of the accusations made by the six-member team.

While the JIT is about to enter the last fortnight of its possible life, none of its member has so far traveled to Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Britain, or any other country, having offshore companies registered, to look into the specific business dealings of the Sharif family. While no JIT member is known to havedeparted to any of these foreign lands, the team is said to have tried through other means and methods to collect evidence from there.

All these countries figured in the Panama case because of Sharifs’ establishment of a steel mill in Dubai in seventies, shifting of its sale proceeds to Qatar where the money was invested, and transfer of this investment to Britain and Saudi Arabia where Hussain Nawaz and Hassan Nawaz set up their businesses and formed companies.

Similarly, there is no announcement from the JIT to send any of its members to Qatar to interview former Prime Minister Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber al-Thani, who has already declared that he stands by all the contents of his previous two letters delivered to the Supreme Court. Of late, he has stated that he would welcome the JIT to Qatar for any kind of questions about the investment of late Mian Mohammad Sharif by his father back in seventies. Nothing is clear about the JIT’s new approach to question the Qatari leader.

Justice Sheikh Azmat Saeed, a member of the special bench of the apex court, has already declared that the Qatari letters would be thrown out of window if the prince refused to appear before the JIT. He made this observation when JIT head Wajid Zia had informed the bench that the Gulf leader is not forthcoming. 

The JIT had sought the intervention of the law ministry for mutual assistance with foreign countries for the purpose of its investigation. However, it is not known whether or not it has sent any communication to these countries to the effect.