LAHORE: The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) accused the Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly Shehbaz Sharif and his family members of laundering about Rs25 billion using the bank accounts of employees working for Ramzan Sugar Mills and Al-Arabia Sugar Mills.
On June 15, the FIA’s Anti-Corruption Circle issued a notice to the PML-N president, asking him to appear in person before its investigators on June 22 and also bring relevant documents with him.
Sources disclosed that the PML-N leader appeared before a five-member investigation team of the FIA Punjab Zone-1 Director Dr Rizwan at Lahore office on Tuesday.
Two days ago the Agency summoned Shehbaz and his son, Hamza Shehbaz as soon after the summons both the father and son have appeared before an additional district and sessions judge Lahore who granted pre-arrest bail to them in multi-billion sugar scam.
According to a private television, the FIA claimed that Shehbaz and his family members laundered money using 20 bank accounts of peons, clerks, cashiers and warehouse managers employed in the sugar mills. About Rs2.70 billion was laundered in the name of peon Maqsood and about Rs2.80 billion was laundered in the name of Haji Naeem.
The anti-corruption watchdog further added that about Rs2.5 billion was laundered in the name of another employee working as a driver whereas about Rs1.75 billion was laundered in the name of a peon named Aslam. The FIA further claimed that about Rs4.5 billion was laundered in the name of clerks Azhar and Ghulam Shabir Hayat.
The names of Qaiser Abbas, Akbar, Iqrar, Anwar, Yaseen, Ghazanfar, Tauqeer, Zafar Iqbal, Kashif Majeed and Masroor Anwar were also used, the FIA added. The FIA further accused the chief financial officer of Sharif Group of Companies of supervising all money laundering whereas Shahbaz’s camp office was used to collect the money and sacks of notes were delivered to Salman Shahbaz’s office under police protocol. All the money from Salman’s office would be sent abroad by hawala and hundi, the FIA claimed.
Meanwhile, talking to media, PML-N spokesperson Marriyum Aurangzeb has termed FIA notice to the party head Shehbaz and Hamza as illegal. She alleged that the FIA was now indulged in political revenge after the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), adding the whole drama was being staged in order to create distraction from the anti-people budget.
On the other hand, former prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi expressed the NAB cases as baseless saying when the NAB did not find anything against them then benami accounts matter had emerged. Abbasi alleged that efforts were being made to bring a presidential system in cover of electoral reforms, adding a country can never progress where votes are stolen.
