Tag: Westminster Magistrates Court

  • ‘Radical Mindset’: No Pakistani female official going to Hajj

    Pakistan’s Hajj mission would have no female Hajj aides for the first time in history to assist women pilgrims performing Hajj in Saudi Arabia, Zahid Gishkori reports for Samaa News.

    This year, approximately 80,000 Pakistani pilgrims, including over 8,000 women, will perform Hajj. Federal Minister of Religious Affairs and Interfaith Harmony Maulana Abdul Shakoor has decided not to send women officials with the pilgrims.

    Women officers who were barred from accompanying pilgrims have written to Federal Ombudsperson for Harassment Kashmala Tariq, calling the minister’s action “misogynistic” and “discriminatory”.

    “The illogical ground of this policy is depriving us from our constitutional right of equality, which resulted in discrimination [and] caused ridicule to all women officers and officials of the ministry,” reads the letter. The letter has signatures of seven officials.

    Officials also criticised the secretary, who serves as the ministry’s administrative head, for his “lack of opposition”.

    They went on to say that the secretary is normally obligated to carry with the minister’s decision under the ministry’s Rule of Business, 1973.

    Read more- 200 officials to reportedly fly for Hajj on govt expenses, PM takes notice

    The women have accused ministry officials of surrendering to the ‘radical mindset’ of the minister.

  • Shehbaz Sharif, son were focus of UK’s money-laundering investigation

    Shehbaz Sharif, son were focus of UK’s money-laundering investigation

    The United Kingdom’s (UK) anti-corruption force National Crime Agency (NCA) told the Westminster Magistrates’ Court on December 19, 2019, that it needed Assets Freezing Orders (AFO’s) to initiate a high-profile investigation into former Punjab Chief Minister Shehbaz Sharif and his son Suleman Sharif to “prove or disprove” their alleged involvement in money-laundering, fraud, corrupt practices and misuse of public office for the purposes of money-laundering, reports Murtaza Ali Shah for The News.

    It was reported in November last year that the NCA has ended a major money-laundering investigation into Shehbaz Sharif and his son Suleman without any further action and unfreezing of the assets after finding no evidence of criminal conduct, money-laundering and abuse of public office. It was then claimed by Prime Minister (PM) Imran Khan’s adviser on accountability Shehzad Akbar that Shehbaz Sharif was not part of the investigation because his name was not part of the Order that set aside the AFO’s.

    The NCA told the court: “This application is in respect of funds held in the name of or associated to, Suleman Shahbaz Sharif and Shehbaz Sharif (officer note: frequently referred to as Shehbaz Sharif/Shahbaz Sharif).”

    The NCA said it suspected that the money that was transferred to Carter Ruck’s account was “in fact deemed to be associated to Suleman Sharif”. After the court granted AFO’s to NCA, further steps were taken to seek access to Shehbaz Sharif’s accounts at Barclays Bank and Habib Bank’s London branch as part of the “Frozen Funds” investigation.

    The NCA officer told the court it suspected that “the funds which are intended to be frozen are derived from this criminal conduct in Pakistan, namely accrued from the Sharif Group or by Shehbaz Sharif during his time as Chief Minister of Punjab. I suspect that this represents an active attempt by Shehbaz Sharif and Suleman Sharif to launder the proceeds of their criminality into the UK”.

    In introducing to the court who Shehbaz Sharif and Suleman Sharif were and why it intended to investigate them for the alleged criminal conduct of money-laundering, the NCA explained to the judge that Shehbaz Sharif is a “Politically Exposed Person (PEP) and has held a series of political appointments in Pakistan from the early 90s onwards, including president of the PML-N, Chief Minister of Punjab, and leader of the opposition provincial assembly of the Punjab”.

    It’s pertinent to mention that the NCA relied heavily on Daily Mail’s article by David Rose dated July 14, 2019, which he had published after visiting Pakistan for several days where he was given access to detainees who allegedly did money-laundering for the Sharifs.

    David Rose had claimed: “Britain’s National Crime Agency is working closely with Pakistani investigators and Home Secretary Sajid Javid is discussing the possible extradition of members of Shahbaz’s family who have taken refuge in London.”

    Shehzad Akbar had confirmed to David Rose in the same article: “We are working closely with the National Crime Agency and the Home Office. We are grateful for this assistance and we hope it will ensure that theft and money-laundering of this magnitude will never happen again.” The NCA told the court: “The Assets Recovery Unit  (ARU) was created by PM Imran Khan to assist in the recovery of criminal assets to the state of Pakistan. This letter has confirmed that Shehbaz Sharif is currently under investigation by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), Pakistan’s autonomous federal and anti-corruption agency, and was granted bail by the Accountability Court on February 14, 2019.”

    The NCA informing the court why it’s working with the ARU on these cases, said: “The ARU was created by PM Imran Khan under the leadership of his accountability advisor, a barrier and member of the Pakistan cabinet. The ARU was created to break down inter-agency barriers, combine in one pace the discrete powers of the federal agencies; and, prioritise asset recovery in the interests of the govt of Pakistan. The unit is formed of representatives from the NAB, FIA, FBR, and the State Bank of Pakistan.”

    The NCA investigation continued into Shehbaz Sharif for almost two years as the NCA went back nearly 15 years to investigate Shehbaz Sharif’s accounts and financial affairs and found no evidence of criminal conduct or fraud. The investigation was shut down in November 2021 after the NCA failed to establish that Shehbaz Sharif and his family were involved in any kind of wrongdoing, effectively giving Shehbaz Sharif a clean chit.

  • British court orders unfreezing of Shehbaz Sharif, son’s UK bank accounts

    British court orders unfreezing of Shehbaz Sharif, son’s UK bank accounts

    A United Kingdom (UK) court has ordered to unfreeze Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) President Shehbaz Sharif and his family’s bank accounts for lack of evidence of corruption and money laundering, reported Geo News.

    The UK’s National Crime Agency (NCA) unfroze the bank accounts of former Punjab chief minister Shehbaz Sharif and those of his son, Suleman Shehbaz, on Monday.

    The NCA had conducted a 17-month long probe in which it examined Shehbaz Sharif’s financial transactions over the past 20 years. It said that no evidence of money laundering or criminal activities against the PML-N president or his family was found.

    The UK’s top anti-corruption agency filed a unilateral application before Judge Rimmer to declare that its two-year high-profile investigation in the jurisdictions of Pakistan, UK, and Dubai found no evidence of money laundering and criminal conduct on part of the two Sharifs who were investigated. 

    The NCA had initiated the probe after Pakistan’s Asset Recovery Unit (ARU) had shared evidence with the UK crime agency.

    After the Westminster Magistrates Court allowed the accounts to be frozen and issued a probe consent to the NCA on December 19, 2019, Suleman Shehbaz’s declared Barclays account, Shehbaz Sharif’s HBL UK and Barclays account were immediately probed, seized and monies were frozen.

    Usually, anti-money laundering investigations go back only six years, but in this case, the NCA used its excessive powers and investigated Shehbaz Sharif and his son’s transactions dating back to around 20 years.

    NCA’s investigators started the probe from the first flat that Shehbaz Sharif bought in 2004 on Edgware Road when he was in exile and asked him to produce evidence of the clean origin of the money, including mortgage payments, sources of proceeds in his accounts, salaries and dividends, and full proceeds of the property purchase in the UK bought during exile.

    The NCA investigated Suleman Shehbaz’s Barclays account declared in Pakistan with the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) and looked into all transfers that were made from Pakistan after the State Bank of Pakistan’s approval. The NCA went through each receipt of transfers from the official money exchangers.

    The court documents obtained by this correspondent from credible sources show that the NCA received a letter from the ARU on December 11, 2019, in which it levelled allegations of criminal conduct against Shehbaz Sharif and Suleman Shehbaz.

    The government of Pakistan had requested the UK government to seize all assets and funds of Shehbaz Sharif and his family and asked them to return the same to Pakistan and extradite Suleman Shehbaz with his family.

    Advisor to the Prime Minister on Accountability Shahzad Akbar said that reports of Shehbaz Sharif being acquitted by the British court were incorrect, clarifying that neither had the ARU nor NAB requested the UK government to initiate a probe against the PML-N leader.

    “[These transactions] were declared as a suspicious transaction by the UK authorities and the NCA secured an asset freezing order(AFO) from the court against these funds,” he tweeted.

    “The news about the alleged acquittal of Shehbaz Sharif or his son Suleman run by one news channel is incorrect and misreporting. It was a result of a suspicious transaction reported by a bank to NCA. The investigation by the NCA against Suleman Shehbaz and some of his family members was not initiated at the request of Asset Recovery Unit (ARU) or National Accountability Bureau (NAB),” tweeted Akbar, who had been keeping a low profile for the last couple of months.

    PML-N spokesperson Marriyum Aurangzeb said: “The UK court’s decision has unequivocally exonerated Shehbaz Sharif and his family of all malicious and vexatious claims of corruption and money laundering by Imran Khan. The NCA conducted a 21-month global investigation spanning across a 20-year timeframe whilst overcoming unprecedented jurisdictional challenges.”

    “Never in the history of Pakistan has such a public office-holder been subjected to global scrutiny and multi-jurisdictional probing. Imran Khan has been exposed as a charlatan, willing to malign and assassinate characters of honest public office-holders. False corruption narrative exposed as nothing more than a smokescreen and Imran Khan to be an unscrupulous ringmaster of a circus built on incompetence, deceit and stained by the indignation of the innocent and the poor,” she said.