Avenfield case: 'Calibri' was available in 2005, UK forensic expert says

ISLAMABAD: The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) court on Friday concluded recording the statement of forensic expert Robert Radley who had a day earlier admitted that the Calibri font was available in a limited scale in 2005.

The hearing has been adjourned until March 2.

Radley told the court he wanted to change his statement and was informed that his statement had been recorded a day earlier and now he was to be examined.

While being examined by Khawaja Haris, Radley said he only received the documents on July 6, 2017, and had he not been pressed for time, he would have been able to submit a ten-times more detailed report.

Haris, asked if that meant, due to lack of time the report submitted was not correct. Radley responded that was not the case and that he was completely certain about the accuracy of his report adding that if he wasn't pressed for time the report would have been more detailed.

Cross questioning Radley, Haris asked if he was an IT expert, to which Radley responded that he was not. Radley further stated that the font in question was in his use in 2005. The defence counsel then stated that the report he submitted was incorrect, to which Radley stated that his report was absolutely correct.

Was the creator of the Calibri font given an award for his services in the field of IT, the defence counsel asked, to which Radley responded in the affirmative.

Radley also told the prosecution that he had mentioned all of his sources in his first report, however, he had omitted them from his second report. 

Windows introduced six fonts from 2002 through to 2006, Haris noted, questioning the witness if he had stated the same in his report. Bradley responded that the report was technical in nature hence this detail was not mentioned.

A day earlier Radley, who had been presented by the NAB, had told the court that the Calibri font was available in 2005, albeit on a limited scale.

In his findings included in the JIT report, Radley had noted that he "identified the type font used to produce both certified declarations as ‘Calibri’. However, [the font] was not commercially available before Jan 31, 2007 and as such, neither of the [documents] is correctly dated and [appear] to have been created at some later point in time."

After Radley, the court recorded the statement of Raja Akhtar, owner of the Quist law firm in UK and the cousin of NAB's Wajid Zia.

Raja informed the court that he founded his law firm in 1994 and the JIT approached the company for its services on May 12, 2017.

He confirmed that the services were of a professional nature and entailed legal cooperation regarding the Panama Papers case in the Supreme Court.

He also said that he is the first cousin of Zia.

Akhtar said that he was provided with the copies of the documents submitted before the Supreme Court, which included trust declarations for Nielsen Enterprises Limited and Nescoll Limited.

Another trust declaration for Comber Group Inc. was also sent to him, Akhtar confirmed.

Freeman Box Solicitors confirmed to Quist that the trust deed between Hussain and Maryam Nawaz was signed on February 4, 2006, said Akhtar.

He further said that he saw a lot of irregularities and fraud in the documents provided to him.

'Supplementary reference nearing its dismissal'

After attending the hearing Nawaz Sharif spoke to journalists outside the accountability court and said the supplementary reference also appeared to be nearing its dismissal. He added that yesterday he [Radley] said the Calibri font was only available to IT experts; today he added that while he is not an IT expert he was also using the same font.

Regarding impending verdicts Sharif said, he doesn't think the decision will be written in golden words.

"You must have a fair idea whether our stance has been strengthened or that of the Joint Investigation Team," Nawaz responded to a question, adding, "The answers to the JIT's questions are slowly coming forward and people are realizing that the case is baseless."

Nawaz Sharif, Maryam Nawaz and her husband Captain (retd) Safdar were all present in the courtroom where the family's lawyer Khwaja Haris questioned the forensic expert Radley earlier in the day. 

Maryam 'knew' witness would be NAB's watershed

After the proceedings of the case were completed on Thursday, Maryam had taken to social media to claim that she knew the witness "could not lie".

She had also said that she had faith in God and knew that the witness NAB was relying on would be "their watershed".

"I was waiting for the day. I knew the witness they were banking on would be their watershed. I knew he could not lie. I had faith in Allah," she tweeted. 

At the last hearing of the case on February 13, Accountability Court-I Judge Mohammad Bashir had rejected the suspects' request to be exempted from appearance owing to a visit to London.

NAB had filed the supplementary Avenfield reference on January 22 this year.