NAB investigation wing distancing itself from references against Sharifs

ISLAMABAD: The four corruption references filed by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) against the Sharif family on the orders of Supreme Court are the first of their kind where the bureau’s investigation wing is not ready to own most of the flawed investigation done by the controversial and whatsapp-calls-fame Joint Investigation Team (JIT).

The JIT report has been adopted as a whole as evidence against the Sharif family and references have been filed within the stipulated six-week period, whereas the NAB investigation team was strongly of the view that the cases required further probe but because of the deadline given by the apex court, the JIT’s head Wajid Zia ,who hired his cousin’s one-man-show and loss-making law firm in the UK to work for the JIT adding skeletons to his closets, was made prosecution witness against the Sharif family.

It is for the first time that the Bureau has to depend on an investigation done by someone else and that too a fact-finding team that is why the Bureau after requesting the monitoring judge, recorded the statement of Wajid Zia and bound him to be a prosecution witness.  Sources in Nab say that the NAB investigators do not agree with most of the investigation done by the JIT.

Well-placed sources in the NAB told The News that the NAB has not done any investigation in the said four references because it did not have time for the said investigation. NAB, in the given time, has made inquiry reports and investigation reports which are formalities for filing references. 

The sources said in a normal case, NAB summons an accused at least three times before proceeding ex-parte but in the cases of Sharif family only one notice was issued to the accused and their reply that their review petition was pending with the apex court was considered enough not to summon them again.

The sources mentioned that the Sindh High Court (SHC) had approved a Standard Operating Procedure for the NAB that the complaint verification process should be completed in two months and the inquiry in four months while the investigation also must not take more than four months which means that from complaint verification to completion of investigation, NAB is given at least 10 months whereas in the case of Sharif family the NAB completed the entire process in six weeks because it was ordered by the SC to do so. 

NAB investigators believe that had they been given ample time and independence, they might have dropped a few cases but because of the SC order, they had passed the buck on to Wajid Zia who will help the prosecution fight the cases in courts.

The sources said the case of Avenfield properties of Sharifs had been pending with the NAB since Musharraf’s era but because NAB had no jurisdiction in the UK, the investigation was pending since long.

The NAB has filed four references on the orders of the apex court. The first reference relates to the Avenfield properties of Sharif family (Flat No.16 and 16-A, 17 and 17-A Avenfield House, Park Lane, London, United Kingdom). 

The second corruption reference relates to Azizia Steel Company and Hill Metal Establishment.  The third reference is regarding the 16 companies owned by the Sharif family abroad as mentioned in SC judgment. (Flagship Investments Limited, Hartstone Properties Limited, Que Holdings Limited; Quint Eaton Place 2 Limited, Quint Saloane Limited (formerly Quint Eaton Place Limited), Quaint Limited, Flagship Securities Limited, Quint Gloucester Place Limited, Quint Paddington Limited (formerly Rivates Estates Limited), Flagship Developments Limited, Alanna Services Limited (BVI), Lankin SA (BVI), Chadron Inc, Ansbacher Inc, Coomber Inc and Capital FZE (Dubai). 

The fourth reference is against Ishaq Dar, who, according to the JIT report, has accumulated wealth beyond his known sources of income as it has been alleged that Dar’s wealth witnessed a staggering 91 times increase from Rs9 million to Rs831m in a short span of time.

Regarding the first reference, NAB investigators who have read the JIT’s report along with its 10 volumes are of the view that NAB had investigated the Avenfield properties of Sharifs but because of lack of evidence and no response from the UK authorities had halted the investigation. 

There were a few issues surrounding the said reference. The first issue is regarding the beneficial ownership of two off-shore companies associated with the London properties. 

The name of Maryam Nawaz as beneficial owner of the two off-shore companies emerged from a 2012 Financial Investigation Agency (FIA) of BVI’s general investigation where according to the Sharif Family, someone at the legal firm Mossack Fonseca had misconstrued the information provided to it and that Ms Maryam was only a trusty and not the beneficial owner. 

Hussain Nawaz provided the JIT with a letter from a company JPCA Limited which took over secretarial administration of the offshore companies Nielsen and Nescoll in 2014 which was earlier managed by a company Minerva. However, JIT simply ignored this letter without any verification. 

The JPCA letter reads, “These discussions and meetings took place with Mr Hussain Sharif in his capacity as beneficial owner of Nescoll and Nielsen Enterprises under the terms of a Declaration of Trust signed by Mrs Mariam Safdar of Lahore, Pakistan on 2 February 2006 as Trustee holding the entire share capital of those companies on trust for Mr Sharif as sole Beneficiary thereof. We further confirm that JPCA Limited has never met with Mrs Safdar, nor have we taken any direct instruction from her in matters relating to either Nescoll Limited or Nielsen Enterprises.”

The JIT declared that Maryam and Hussain Nawaz have submitted falsified/tampered Declarations of Trusts in the SC and before the JIT. The basic finding of JIT on basis of forensic expert report is that the trust deed was signed in 2006 and it is typed in a Calibri font which was commercially available in January 2007. However, Calibri font was available for download after 2004 but it became default part of Microsoft operating systems only in 2007. 

Had this been proved and established that Calibri font was invented only in 2007 and never existed before it could have proved the point that documents were fake.  It is important to mention that a British company Freeman Box witnessed this deed agreement in 2006 according to the Trust Deed documents. 

It is very interesting that a British company ‘Quist Solicitors’ owned by JIT’s head Wajid Zia’s cousin was hired by the JIT and it wrote to the Freeman Box to confirm whether Freeman Box witnessed Trust Deed between Hussain Nawaz and Maryam Nawaz in 2006.

The Freeman Box responded to the Quist that it is true that the company witnessed this trust deed agreement in 2006. However, the JIT didn’t mention this fact in its final report’s findings. If a UK law firm is proved to have done such a forgery, it cannot exist anymore in the UK.

Regarding the transfer of funds through Qatar, the NAB investigators believe that the Qatari prince should have been given time and opportunity to contradict the Sharifs before jumping to any conclusion. 

Sources in NAB said that the JIT had summoned the Sharif family multiple times and on every occasion, the members appeared before the JIT but the documents which the JIT has attached in the annexures could have come through embassies which would have court-worthiness value.

Regarding the Dubia notarization issue, according to the Ministry of Justice UAE response to the JIT, the Sharif family agreement with Ahli Steel of 1980 could not be found in its record, which does not translate that the agreement was fake, as the JIT could have contacted the Ahli Steel Mills which is operational even now and could record their witness statement. But it was never done and the JIT only examined the selected witnesses.

Regarding transportation of “scrap machinery” from Dubai to Jeddah, the term “Scrap Machinery” was apparently usedto confuse Dubai authorities instead of asking about any movement of machinery. There is no HS code covering ‘scarp machinery’. The term used on the documents is an Arabic term meaning “steel mills machinery”. There are 28 receipts of original Dubai Custom documents of trucks of the machinery in the dates September 3, 2001 to September 14, 2001. Even Saudi Custom’s receipts of arrival of the machinery in Jeddah are also available but the JIT didn’t see them.

Regarding the Hill Metals (HME), it was formed after 2005 when Al Azizia Steel was sold. The proceeds of Al Azizia Steel were Saudi Riyal 63 million while SR 40million became 25% equity for Hill Metals. Two Saudi banks and the state owned Saudi Industrial Development Fund financed the remaining 75%.

Regarding Flagship Investment Limited and other companies set up/taken over by Hassan Nawaz Sharif, the Sharifs have responded that Flagship was started with modest capital. The business model of Flagship is that they buy a rundown property, develop it to a very high standard (takes average 2.5 years per property sometimes even more) and then sell it. It's easy to find buyers in London given the high demand. Hence they get paid for value addition, appreciation in the price of the property in the time the work goes on. 

Normally if the estimated cost of the project including its redevelopment is say 2 million pounds, 0.5 million pounds is paid as equity whereas 1.5 million is bank loan. It is very easy to sell such property for 2.5 million (even more) after 2.5 years. Since one’s equity was 0.5 million, one can easily double it. Flagship has done dozens of projects like this and sold them. 

There is no working capital required in such business. The money that was used in flagship came from these sources: - a) From the Qatari prince; b) from the sale proceeds of Al Azizia Steel money was given to Hassan Sharif by his elder brother Hussain Sharif. c) In 2007 after the Park Lane apartments were transferred to Hussain Sharif, he let his brother Hassan mortgage those properties and borrow against them from Deutsche Bank. That money was used in the business giving it the real boost. The loan was paid off in instalments and completed in 2015.