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Thursday March 28, 2024

Govt plays down Shahbaz’s move against UK paper

By APP
July 29, 2019

ISLAMABAD: Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Accountability Shahzad Akbar, while playing down Shahbaz Sharif’s legal action against a British newspaper, said on Sunday the PML-N president would not dare to sue him or The Mail of Sunday as he merely filed a complaint with the newspaper over a story exposing his family’s alleged embezzlement of foreign aid.

“I feel left out after Shahbaz Sharif lodged a mere complaint to the Daily Mail instead of filing a lawsuit against me in a court of London,” Akbar said while accusing the PML-N leader of trying to avoid legal proceedings.

Addressing a press conference here, the Prime Minister’s aide said he was there to clarify the impression created by some news reports. Akbar quoted the press release issued by Carter-Ruck, the legal firm hired by Sharif, as stating: “The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) president has issued a formal legal complaint against The Mail on Sunday and Mail Online, and its journalist David Rose, about an article published on Sunday, 14 July 2019.” The Prime Minister’s special assistant said Sharif in his four-page complaint to the British newspaper did not deny any allegation levelled against him by the Daily Mail’s reporter. He only raised questions over the content of the story instead of giving any counter claim.

Sharif, he said, complained to the newspaper that his version was not taken instead of denying the facts mentioned in the story. He might have forgotten that the reporter had clearly mentioned that he had approached the personal secretaries of Sharif to get his version, he added.

He said soon after filing of the complaint by the PML-N chief, in which he claimed he was not present in Pakistan at the time of 2005 earthquake, David Rose, in a tweet, responded that the alleged theft in the earthquake funds had occurred in 2009 and 2011.

After the revelation of Sharif family’s alleged embezzlement in the funds provided by the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID) for the victims of 2005 earthquake, Akbar said the PML-N leadership had promised to file a libel suit against him (Shahzad Akbar) and the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government in London, but they had failed to do so as yet. The special assistant again challenged the PML-N leadership to take him to a London court, so that he could prove them guilty in mere two months as in Pakistan such cases took years.

If Sharif filed a suit only against the Daily Mail and left him (Shahzad Akbar) out, then he would join the case as a third-party to prove his family’s money laundering through telegraphic transfers, he added.

Akbar claimed he had substantial evidence against Sharif’s son-in-law Ali Imran, who had allegedly got transferred huge amount from the Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Authority (ERRA) funds.

Former ERRA director Naveed Ikram, who had struck a plea bargain with the National Accountability Bureau, was favoured by Sharif several times by appointing him on high posts for illegally transferring funds to his son-in-law’s bank accounts, he added.

The special assistant claimed David Rose had only revealed five per cent of the evidence of the Sharif family’s corruption in earthquake fund while the rest 95 per cent were still held by him (Shahzad Akbar).

To a query, he said the high-powered commission, formed by Prime Minister Imran Khan to probe corruption during the two previous governments, had taken up the matters regarding independent power plants and other issues.

The PTI leadership, he vowed, would not back out from pursuing the corruption cases. The plea bargain was only way out for the looters and plunderers, which was also subject to the court orders, he added.