JIT over but legal assistance request in UK alive

LONDON: The Supreme Court of Pakistan’s Joint Investigation Team (JIT) has finished its work but probe into the Sharif family’s assets is alive in the form of Mutual Legal Assistance (MLA) request by the judicial authorities of Pakistan to the UK Home Office seeking “judicial cooperation”.

The News has learnt from reliable sources in the Home Office, as well sources familiar with the JIT’s investigations into the UK through lawyers, that Pakistan has asked the UK Central Authority International Criminality Unit (UKCA) to verify around 300 papers. Interestingly, the MLA request also includes documents which are from countries such as Saudi Arabia and UAE – out of the UK jurisdiction.

A Home Office source that said that no response has been given to Pakistani authorities but the MLA request is being assessed but on the record a home office spokesman said: “It is long-standing policy of the Home Office to neither confirm nor deny any requests made of this type.”

Various sources told this scribe that JIT had been advised by more than three UK lawyers that it could take “several months” for the UK to coordinate with Pakistan on the issue of “judicial cooperation” request under MLA. “We have been told that it could take anything from a minimum four months to one year or more to get the assistance that’s required. That will include a lot of hard work and pushing,” said the source on condition of anonymity.

Lawyers working for JIT have said that documents passed for verification to the UK’s Home Office include papers related to Avenfield properties, 1 Hyde Park Way, Hasan Nawaz Sharif’s companies, Hill Metals Saudi Arabia, Azizia Steel Mills, Capital FZE Dubai and few others. Usually, such requests are sent by the governments but in this case the MLA request has been initiated by the Supreme Court of Pakistan under section 21 of the NAO, 1999 and the government of Pakistan was not consulted or informed.

It’s understood that Volume-10, a booklet that carries mutual legal assistance secrets, is not being made public because it has details of what exactly has been requested from the foreign governments including a large number of documents which have been sent to foreign governments for verification and investigation. Revealing the contents of Volume-10 will open a new pandora’s box as the government will contest that only selected questions have been asked to get the desired answers and it will also actually reveal when the MLA requested were actually generated – after the formation of JIT or before.

The request to Home Office’s Central Authority International Criminality Unit was routed through Toby Cadman who advised JIT’s head Wajid Zia in a letter dated 19 June that all documents his law firm had gathered for the JIT through “open and confidential sources” are “copies of the originals” and their contents have been verified but he advised the JIT should file a proper request to the UK government. That, he advised, should include “a mutual legal assistance request by the competent authority designed by the government of Pakistan be initiated requesting UK government to authenticate these” and “a copy of the authorisation letter in our firm’s name”.

Toby Cadman’s correspondence with the JIT is dated 19 July but he also makes mention of “our previous engagements on the subject” and “concerted efforts over the past couple of weeks” which suggest that either the law firms in UK were hired on the first day of the JIT’s formation or much before it was formed.

The News had revealed exclusively in a report on 4 July that the JIT has hired a law firm in London which has further instructed another law firm and a forensic firm. Wajid Zia had hired relative Akhtar Raja of Quist Solicitors to look after the UK operation of the JIT overall and to write letters and further instruct two QCs to seek their opinion on the question of beneficial ownership of the Avenfield properties under Nielson and Nescoll offshore companies and that has formed the basis of JIT’s fundamental conclusion.

Services of Toby Cadman were hired for the verification, collection and investigations of businesses linked with Nawaz Sharif’s sons Hassan and Hussain Nawaz Sharif, who are both British nationals and have been doing business for over two decades now.

Toby Cadman is a well-known international law specialist, who has dealt extensively with Mutual Legal Assistance cases. His services have been hired by various foreign governments, organisations and individuals to deal with cases of war crimes, human rights, terrorism and extradition. The News has learnt through reliable sources that Toby Cadman was instructed by the JIT directly for his services.

When contacted by The News, Toby Cadman said: "I was instructed by the JIT to prepare a report in respect of an ongoing inquiry which has now been submitted. As the matter remains ongoing and is presently sub judice it would not be appropriate for me to comment further at this stage."

This correspondent had interviewed Toby Cadman in December 2013 when he had held a press conference in London along with Steve Kay QC representing former military ruler Pervez Musharraf. In a news piece published on December 21, 2013 in The News/Jang, it was reported that Toby Cadman had submitted a report to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and also appealed to US, Britain and Saudi Arabia to help Pervez Musharraf in treason trial.

Both Toby Cadman and Steve Kay had criticised Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s government in the press conference and said that Musharraf’s trial complies with “no known legal norms” and that allegations against Musharraf were “unsubstantiated” and “false”.

Although Toby Cadman visited Pakistan with a leader of Pervez Musharraf’s APMLN in UK during Musharraf’s trial but this scribe has reliably learnt that Toby Cadman was consulted but not hired by General Musharraf as the matter ended prematurely.

JIT has confirmed in its report that it sent MLA requests to BVI, UK, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Luxembourg, Switzerland and the highest number of requests were to the UK Home Office. It’s understood that Toby Cadman has sent 7 MLA requests by a formal international Letter of Request (LOR) seeking “judicial cooperation”. A source told that Akhtar Raja has not finished his job and continues to write follow up letters to various government departments.

Originally published in The News