JIT report: Volume X contains no evidence against Nawaz

ISLAMABAD: The Volume X (Mutual Legal Assistance Requests-Ongoing) of the Panama Joint Investigation Team (JIT) report carries no evidence of corruption or misuse of authority/powers against Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, sources told The News here on Friday.

“No letter or correspondence of the JIT with the foreign countries carries any proof of corruption or misuse of power by Nawaz Sharif during his two stints as the Punjab Chief Minister and three as the Prime Minister of Pakistan,” the sources said.

The sources said the JIT in its ‘untiring’ efforts to dig out any kind of evidence of corruption against the Sharif family, especially Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, also sent letters and questions to the relevant authorities in Switzerland and Luxembourg but received no reply from them.

The sources said the JIT in its letters to Switzerland and Luxembourg asked the relevant authorities to search and share details of bank accounts and properties, if any, related to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his family.

Similarly, the sources claimed two other countries — Saudi Arabia and the United Kingdom — also never responded to the letters sent by the JIT, adding, “Only two states including Dubai and British Virgin Island provided answers to the questions raised in the letters of the JIT.”

The sources said it was not clear whether it needed to get response from those countries which had so far not responded to the letters of the JIT but the current material of Volume X of the JIT report had nothing against Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

“The hype about Volume X of the JIT report was created by all the stakeholders to serve their specific interests. The official reply from four countries may have provided significant material but at the moment no such thing has happened,” the sources said.

The three-member Supreme Court bench on Friday opened the JIT report’s volume 10 that was earlier kept confidential at the time the JIT submitted its final report. The JIT had asked the Supreme Court not to make the volume public as it contained material related to ongoing international cooperation in the investigation against the Sharif family.

Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting Marriyum Aurangzeb had stated that the real intentions of the Panama JIT would be revealed when the Volume 10 of the final report was made public.The sources said the apex court gave the Volume X documents to only Khawaja Haris, the counsel for Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, and asked him to examine its specific sections.