Broadsheet investigations

On June 20, 2000, the government of Pakistan, by and through the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), signed an ‘asset recovery agreement’ with Broadsheet Investigations “to recover assets looted from the Pakistani people by certain high-profile, powerful, and corrupt government officials.”. The agreement was signed by Dr William Pepper, on behalf of Broadsheet, and by Lt General Syed Muhammad Amjad, on behalf of the government of Pakistan as the then chairman of NAB.

Broadsheet was “empowered by the agreement to recover assets diverted to the private accounts of the powerful Sharif family” and a separate company, International Asset Recovery Limited (IAR), was “formed for the purpose of recovering assets from the Bhutto family.” Broadsheet and IAR were to charge a 20 percent fee for the recoveries of stolen assets.

According to Broadsheet, “At the time the agreement was made in June 2000, General Pervez Musharraf had recently come to power in a military coup with the declared intention of improving transparency and financial integrity, stamping out the rampant corruption at all levels of Pakistani government, and returning to the Pakistani treasury billions of dollars of assets pilfered by military and civilian government officials during the 1990s.”

Broadsheet claims that the company incurred upwards of $5-7 million and positioned “itself to seize substantial assets from several of the Targets.” In September 2002, a Pakistani magazine report titled ‘On the billion-dollar trail’ stated: “With Pakistan unfortunately being one of the world’s star players in the corruption game, it was only a matter of the right people, being in the right place, at the right time, for Broadsheet to move in. For the first time in decades there was a government in place that meant business, and cracking down on corruption took on a whole new dimension.”

‘On the billion-dollar trail’ claimed that “In just two years Broadsheet, in conjunction with NAB, has already successfully frozen accounts abroad worth millions of dollars belonging to politicians, businessmen, bureaucrats and armed forces personnel. Though the total amount remains a closely guarded secret, millions of dollars in illegal assets have already been recovered, the recent Mansural [sic] Haq case being one example.”

In 2002, Broadsheet claimed that the company was “working on a list of hundreds of targets….. Allegedly there is anything between 30-50 billion dollars in illegal assets and corruption money outside Pakistan.” In 2002, a source within Broadsheet claimed, “The politicians have really exploited the system and between them, the PPP and the PML (Nawaz Group), have channelled billions of dollars out of the country.”

Lo and behold, Nawaz Sharif agreed to go away for ten years and General Musharraf had a change of heart-in essence, Musharraf compromised on a matter of national interest. Reportedly, “Both Lieutenant General Syed Muhammad Amjad, the founding Chairman of the NAB, and noted Supreme Court advocate Farouk Adam Khan, the first Prosecutor General of NAB, both resigned their positions due to unacceptable prevailing circumstances.” On October 28, 2003, the government of Pakistan, through its London solicitors Kendall Freeman, issued a letter terminating the agreement.

Postscript: On December 26, the London Court of International Arbitration (LCIA) awarded a penalty of $21 million to be paid by Pakistan to Broadsheet LLC.

The writer is the government’s spokesperson on economy and energy issues. Email:

farrukh15@hotmail.com. Twitter: @saleemfarrukh