Zarina Isa bought UK properties using clean money

LONDON: The Supreme Court of Pakistan has accepted all review petitions challenging the court’s judgement in the presidential reference against Justice Qazi Faez Isa over the case that started over the purchase and ownership of three London properties.

The Supreme Court of Pakistan’s Justice Qazi Faez Isa faced a judicial reference filed by the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) government through the Supreme Judicial Council (SJC) in regard to three London properties owned by the judge’s wife and two children.

Justice Isa’s family own properties in London but these properties were bought by the judge’s daughter, wife and son through independent means of income, sent from Pakistan to London through legal and declared means. Justice Isa was accused of owning the three London properties but the judge maintained that he was not the beneficial owner of the properties, directly or indirectly. The Presidential reference was quashed but the matter was sent to the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) for investigation on how the sources were sent to London and what was the origin of the sources.

Sources have shared that Pakistan government’s Assets Recovery Unit (ARU) obtained details of Isa family’s assets from the UK government and at the same time asked the government to inform Pakistan if any illegality had happened during the transfer or purchase of funds and whether any funds had been used which did not match the monies transferred from Pakistan.

The UK government’s Customs and Revenue department informed the Pakistan government that the three assets were bought legally, anti money-laundering checks were made and the funds used in the UK matched the funds sent from Pakistan. It is not known whether this report was made part of the court record or not but a source here said the UK government confirmed these facts to authorities in Pakistan.

Justice Isa’s wife Zarina Montserrat Carrera is half Spanish and has always had a Spanish passport. His son Arsalan Isa Khosa holds a PhD from Birkbeck University and daughter Sehr Isa Khoso is a trained Barrister — herself a British national and married to a British national. Both Arsalan and Sehr have lived and worked in the UK for years.

Of the three properties in East London and Central London, Justice Isa’s wife Zarina Montserrat Carrera, who moved to Pakistan after getting married to Qazi Faiz Esa, owns one property directly under her name.

Zarina Carrera bought a two bedroom flat on Kendal Street on 20.10.2011 against the estimated price of £300,000, according to HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) record. The flat is on the sixth floor of the apartment block.

Zarina Carrera and her son Arsalan Isa Khosa bought a flat jointly in March of 2013 for the price of £245,000 in Walthamstow, East London. The title deed shows that the transaction went through on March 27, 2013.

Justice Khosa’s daughter Sehr Isa Khoso and Zarina Montserrat Carrera bought an East London flat for the price of £270,000 on June 28, 2013. The Land Registry record shows that searches on all three properties were made on April 23, 2019.

Justice Isa was born in Quetta, where he completed his early education before moving to Karachi, for his O and A Levels at the Karachi Grammar School. He later read law in London and in 1982 was called to the Bar of England and Wales from Middle Temple.

After qualifying as a barrister, Justice Isa returned to Pakistan where he enrolled as an advocate of the High Court of Balochistan and soon set up practise in Karachi. He was the ‘Isa’ of Rizvi Isa & Co.

The ARU also hired a detective company to investigate the son and daughter of Qazi Faez Isa. They were subjected to surveillance while the spy company obtained their details to pass on to Pakistan. A source familiar with the case said that the spying company provided to Pakistani authorities details of the three properties which are available on the publicly available land registry record.