Process to declare Shahbaz’s daughter as PO begins

LAHORE: An Accountability Court has started proceedings to declare Rabia Imran, daughter of PML-N President Shahbaz Sharif and an accused in assets beyond means and money laundering reference against Shahbaz family, as a proclaimed offender. Accountability Court Judge Jawadul Hassan has initiated proceedings against Rabia Imran for not appearing before the court despite repeated court summons. It is pertinent to mention that Ali Imran Yousaf, husband of Rabia Imran, had already been declared a proclaimed offender by an accountability court in 2018. The NAB had accused Ali Imran of receiving graft in excess of Rs12 million from Ikram Naveed, former CEO of the Punjab Power Development Company (PPDC). It is said that both the husband and the wife are now residing in London. The same court in money laundering reference had initiated proceedings against Suleman Shahbaz, a brother of Rabia Imran, to declare him as a proclaimed offender. Before that in October 2019, Suleman Shahbaz was declared an absconder by Accountability Court Judge Ameer Mohammad Khan in money laundering investigation on the request of National Accountability Bureau.

Furthermore, the court has also started the same proceeding against Haroon Yousaf Aziz, another accused in this reference and said to be the son-in-law of Shahbaz Sharif. All the said accused and members of the Shahbaz family didn’t join the money launder investigation and were also avoiding court despite repeated notices.

In the reference against Shahbaz family, the National Accountability Bureau had claimed that in the last 30 years, the Shahbaz family assets ballooned from Rs 2 million to Rs 7,000 million that the family had failed to justify.

The NAB alleged accused Shahbaz Sharif in connivance with his co-accused family members, Benamidars, front men, close associates, employees and moneychangers had developed an organized system of money-laundering for accumulation of assets disproportionate to his known sources of income to the tune of Rs 7,328 million.

The NAB had nominated former chief minister Punjab Shahbaz Sharif, his wife Nusrat Shahbaz, sons Hamza Shahbaz, Suleman Shahbaz, daughters Rabia Imran and Javeria Ali in the reference. Suleman Shahbaz is already a proclaimed offender in this case.

The other nominated accused people were Nisar Ahmad, Syed Muhammad Tahir Naqvi, Ali Muhammad Khan, Qasim Qayyum, Rashid Karamat, Masroor Anwer, Muhammad Usman, Fazal Dad Abbasi, Muhammad Shoaib Qamar and Haroon Yousaf Aziz.

According to the NAB, Shahbaz family members had allegedly received foreign funds through alleged fake transactions. Hamza Shahbaz had received $2.985 million through 23 transactions, Shahbaz’s wife Nusrat Shahbaz $1.921 million, daughters Rabia Imran $740,000 and Javeria Ali $283,000. These transactions had been made through the company owned by Shahbaz Sharif’s son-in-law Haroon Yousaf. The maximum numbers of fake transactions to the Shahbaz family had been made through Al-Zarooni Exchange of Dubai.

The NAB had also accepted requests from four people —- Muhammad Mushtaq, alias Mushtaq Cheeni, his son Yasir Mushtaq, Shahid Rafique and Aftab Ahmad —- of becoming approvers against the Shahbaz family in the reference.

It was learnt that the reference consisted of 25,000 pages and 55 volumes.

In June 2019, Muhammad Mushtaq, alias Cheeni and his son Yasir Mushtaq, front men of the Shahbaz family, while recording their statements before the court had confessed to facilitating Suleman Shahbaz in whitening his Rs600 million black money through fake loan agreements and engineered telegraphic transfers (TTs).