ISLAMABAD: Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan said the target of opposition parties is Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and slogans demanding to probe “corruption” were to divert public attention.
“One person is being targeted through media, rallies and press conferences,” Nisar said while addressing a press conference in Islamabad. “And the probe into Panama Papers’ revelations is being politicised.”
Nisar said Pakistan was a democratic country and that there was an independent judiciary working. “There are people who only put their faith in the Supreme Court if the judgments are given according to their will.”
The interior minister’s press conference revolved around the explanations of events that transpired since the day Panama Papers’ revelations took the world by storm.
He said Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif wasn’t the only person to have been named in the papers. “Many world leaders, too, were named in there, but PM Nawaz was the first one to react on the revelations,” Nisar said.
Nisar said the government was sincere in launching a probe into the Panama leaks and that was the reason alone that a judicial commission was being discussed right from the onset.
“If Prime Minister Nawaz had to escape the issue, he wouldn’t have advised to reach out to reputed former judges of the Supreme Court to head the investigation,” the interior minister said.
He added that the government even offered the probe to be carried by Federal Investigative Agency (FIA) and that the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan was asked to name any official to head the committee.
“Government was in agreement to investigate the issue through a parliamentary committee, but opposition backed out of this demand. They later demanded to form a commission under the Chief Justice of Pakistan and we agreed on that too,” Nisar said.
“There are people who don’t want this issue to be probed. They just want it to remain on media.”
On Tuesday, opposition party leaders agreed on a joint strategy for a judicial investigation of disclosures from the Panama Papers linking Prime Minister Nawaz’s children and several other Pakistanis to offshore companies.
The Terms of Reference (TOR), agreed upon by the opposition, stated to press the government for a special law – the “PANAMA PAPERS (INQUIRY AND TRIAL) ACT, 2016” – to be passed to facilitate the investigation into the assets, foreign and domestic, of the prime minister and all other Pakistanis named in the papers.
The joint opposition said it would call for the constitution of a special judicial commission headed by the Chief Justice of Pakistan and comprising two other Supreme Court judges.
“The Commission may appoint a committee of experts…in international forensic audit to carry out an exhaustive investigation and audit into the offshore companies and their accounts owned by the Respondent and his family including all transactions, sales and purchases of all assets, moveable and immoveable, including stocks, shares, debentures and equitable or benami interests, opening and operation of all bank accounts, including offshore bank accounts and incorporation of all companies including offshore companies whether directly or behind corporate veil(s) wherever in the world they may be,” read a copy of the TOR, a copy of which was available with Geo News.
The commission will also be tasked to verify the money trail and how funds were provided for such offshore companies. The act passed will provide for “an irrebuttable presumption of guilt” if those being investigated refuse or fail to facilitate of authorise the probe.
Those being investigated shall bear the burden of proving, if ownership of such assets or offshore companies is established, that it was lawfully acquired through legitimate sources and funds.
“Before the Commission enters upon any Inquiry, the Respondents (starting with the Prime Minister his Family as volunteered by himself) shall place all and complete information of all their worldwide moveable and immoveable assets and interests in properties, benami, beneficial, offshore or otherwise held at any time since 1985 along with full details of the Income,” read the TOR agreed upon by the joint opposition.
Interior Minister Nisar rejected the opposition’s TOR, but said the government was ready to have a discussion on it.
Leaked confidential documents spanning over nearly 40 years that spell out the extensive use of tax havens by politicians, world leaders, and celebrities to launder money and evade taxes through one of the most secretive companies the Panamaian law firm Mossack Fonseca, had taken the world by storm.
Many Pakistanis have also been named in their revelations.
The documents identify many Pakistani business tycoons and politicians including late two-time Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto as well certain members of the ruling Sharif family (excluding PM Nawaz and his brother Chief Minister of Punjab Shahbaz Sharif) to have use tax havens to hide their wealth.
(Photo: PID/File)