Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz President and Opposition Leader in National Assembly Shehbaz Sharif on Wednesday lashed out against the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf government and Prime Minister Imran Khan’s allies for levelling baseless corruption allegations against him and his family members for the last three years, adding that his and his family’s acquittal by the National Crime Agency of the UK had vindicated his position.
Addressing a press conference in Lahore, Shehbaz Sharif said there was a hullabaloo among the ranks and files of the government regarding his acquittal by the NCA of the United Kingdom.
The Westminster Magistrates Court’s decision was announced earlier this month and released on Monday on a report of the UK National Crime Agency that said it had stopped a probe into suspicious bank transactions involving Suleman Shehbaz and others.
“Honour and humiliation both are in the hands of God. I want to reveal the fact,” Shehbaz added.
He said his party leaders were put behind the bars but the government could not prove any corruption case against them. He said that Imran Khan wanted to put him in jail.
Reacting to the UK court’s verdict about the unfreezing of his and his family’s bank accounts, PML-N President Shehbaz Sharif said that National Accountability Bureau and Federal Investigation Agency could not prove corruption of even a single penny against him and former prime minister Nawaz Sharif.
He said that the ruling PTI’s ministers have been leveling allegations of corruption worth billions of rupees but could not prove any wrongdoing against him and his family.
The PML-N president said that he was sent to jail twice during the last three months. He said that when the government failed to prove corruption against him and his children they approached UK’s National Crime Agency.
Reading from the NCA’s documents submitted at the start of the investigation, Shehbaz said the NCA had received a letter from the Asset Recovery Unit (ARU) — instead of the investigation agency making a request itself.
Reading further, he said the documents mentioned NAB Lahore DG Shahzad Saleem meeting the NCA operations manager and indicating that NAB would be “happy to assist in any subsequent investigation”.
“This tells [that] by then the NCA didn’t even think of [any] investigation.”
Shehbaz said this was “proof that government ministers have been leading the nation astray in the last 48 hours that they didn’t approach the NCA but were approached by it”.
The PML-N president also pushed back against the claims by ministers that the UK court verdict did not mention his name and was not related to him, saying that his name was mentioned in a number of relevant documents.
Shehbaz also responded to claims that he had not been acquitted of money laundering charges, asking that if the original charges on him were of corruption to benefit his children then “my children are acquitted but I am not? wow.”
He also said that according to the prime minister, he possessed offshore accounts. “The NCA is the world’s most formidable crimes agency and they have recovered millions and millions of pounds from every corner of the world. They are not my relatives that they leave me alone so if my money was deposited in offshore accounts then the NCA would’ve found out in a second,” Shehbaz said.
The PML-N president also referred to a verdict of the Lahore High Court’s full bench on his post-arrest bail petition in which it had observed that he faced no allegation of receiving kickbacks or having ill-gotten money while the chief justice had observed him to be a “good guy” in the Ashiyana Housing Scheme scam.
Referring to the closure of the NCA investigation, he said the agency must have looked at everything before coming to a decision. He said the moment was one of reflection for the legal institutions of the country.
“It was not just a matter of my disrepute […] the country’s repute was also damaged [in the process],” he said, questioning whether cases of the premier’s sister, Aleema Khan, and others were sent to the NCA.
“What goes around comes around. The time for rule of law and justice is approaching.”
“Hang my body like Oliver Cromwell if an ounce of corruption is proved against me after my death,” Shehbaz said.
Responding to a question, Shehbaz said the nation should pursue a defamation case against the prime minister, NAB, FIA and the ARU for sending piles that achieved nothing except wasting the nation’s time.
“If you had been focused on serving the nation then there would not have been so much inflation, education would have been common […] you only had one agenda, how to drive the Sharif family into a corner,” Shehbaz said.
Adviser to Prime Minister on Accountability Shahzad Akbar on Tuesday refuted reports of ‘acquittal’ of PML-N President Shehbaz Sharif and his son Suleman Shehbaz in a money laundering case from a London court, stating that the impression of Shehbaz and his son’s acquittal from the UK court in money laundering case was ‘wrong’, adding that order released by the UK court does not mention the acquittal.
On the other hand, PML-N senior leader Shahid Khaqan Abbasi a day earlier had said that the ruling government had shared “fabricated” evidence against Shehbaz with the NCA and brought shame to Pakistan.
With additional input from INP
