ISLAMABAD: In what may take an already hot political temperature to the boiling point, Interior Minister Rehman Malik accused the Sharif family on Saturday of ‘robbing’ 31 banks, development finance institutions and non-bank financial institutions of over Rs6 billion to build “their industrial empire”.
The allegations, mostly rehashed version of old charges, came a day after PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif asked Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani to step down after conviction by the Supreme Court and threatened to use all options to send the government packing if the demand was not met.
Speaking at a press conference at his office, Mr Malik alleged that the Sharif family had forced banks and other financial institutions to arrange the “staggering sum for their 19 industrial units”.
With a pile of files lying in front of him, the minister claimed that he had in his possession all documentary evidence and threatened to file a reference with the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) next week.
He suggested the NAB as well as the apex court to take note of what he called fraudulent extraction of money by the Sharifs. “I will be pleased to appear before the Supreme Court with all relevant documents.”
Throwing the challenge of a live debate to Sharif brothers, he said he would offer himself to be hanged if he was proved wrong.
In reply to a question, Mr Malik said his life was under threat and he might be attacked, adding that copies of the documents were with his lawyers and ‘the mission’ would continue even if anything happened to him.
He said that although he had tried to avoid taking steps which could vitiate the political atmosphere, he had no option but to release the “first instalment of evidence of corruption involving the Sharif family”.
Mr Malik said the People’s Party was not “allowing me to bring this evidence” for the sake of promoting reconciliation, but alleged that Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly, Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, wanted that the Sharif brothers be exposed. “He (Chaudhry Nisar) has won and I have lost.
“I came to the rescue of my party after the other side started maligning the PPP leadership.”
He alleged that the Rs6 billion default had forced Nawaz Sharif to join hands with former president Farooq Ahmed Leghari to dislodge the Benazir government. The deal had been finalised between the two during investigations into the Mehran Bank scam as both were beneficiaries, the interior minister claimed.
He alleged that Mr Leghari had sold his “barren land in Dera Ghazi Khan for billions of rupees”.
Mr Malik accused the Sharif family of defaulting on payment of $32 million for paper manufacturing machinery leased from a British-based firm, Altowfeek Company, in Feb 1995.
The amount was paid after the High Court of Justice, Queen’s bench division, ordered the British authorities to charge four properties owned by the Sharif family in Britain. He alleged that the Sharif family was involved in money laundering and had deposits in 10 banks in Switzerland. “I will shortly make public the trail of money laundering,” he added.
In reply to a question, he claimed that Benazir Bhutto and Asif Ali Zardari never had a bank account in Switzerland and no document in the Swiss case was genuine. He said the much-talked about necklace allegedly owned by Ms Bhutto also did not belong to her. The interior minister said he had with him an affidavit of the jeweller concerned to prove this.
About the PML-N’s threat of long march to unseat the prime minister, Mr Malik said the PPP could also arrange such a march from Sindh to Lahore.
He agreed that the tiff between the People’s Party and the opposition was harmful to democracy, but said that despite signing the Charter of Democracy, the PML-N wanted to take every possible step it believed could help topple the government.
“There were 8,000 NRO (National Reconciliation Ordinance) cases; why they (PML-N) didn’t become party in the rest of the cases,” he wondered.
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