ISLAMABAD: Four members of the Sharif family will confront the evidence of alleged money laundering provided against them by a former deputy director of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) to the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) constituted by the Supreme Court in the Panama Papers case, Dawn has learnt.

Sources privy to the development said that the FIA’s former deputy director, Inam R. Sehri, has submitted a 248-page report about fictitious bank accounts allegedly used by the Sharif family for money laundering and a 500-page report regarding investigation into the construction of a motorway to the JIT.

Mr Sehri was among those about 800 officers who were sacked by the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) government in 1997 on corruption charges.

Agency’s former deputy director Sehri was sacked by PML-N govt in 1997 on corruption charges

After his sacking Mr Sehri proceeded to the United Kingdom. He is now a partner in a UK-based detective agency, Stonemate.

Earlier, former interior minister Rehman Malik appeared before the JIT in the capacity of a former additional director general of the FIA. Though Mr Sehri has claimed he was part of Mr Malik’s team, the former interior minister — while talking to the media after attending a session with the JIT — did not mention his name when a reporter asked whether or not Mr Sehri was part of his team.

The sources claimed that a close confidant of Mr Malik, FIA’s former additional director Sajjad Haider, is also working with Mr Sehri in the detective agency. But Mr Sehri’s son Barrister A. Ammar Sehri did not confirm the information.

Ammar Sehri, however, admitted that being a former colleague Mr Haider was a close friend of his father’s and he on and off visited him.

He confirmed that his father had submitted certain documents to the JIT last week but he did not disclose details of those documents.

The sources, however, said that Mr Sehri had submitted bank statements of fictitious accounts — which he discovered during the course of investigation into a money laundering case against the Sharifs — to the JIT.

They said the record Mr Sehri submitted to the JIT included statements of Nawaz Sharif and Shahbaz Sharif which were recorded under Section 161 of the Criminal Procedure Code, the statement of their cousin Tariq Shafi, statements of the UK-based Qazi family’s members whose alleged fake accounts were used for the transaction of money and statements of alleged facilitators as well as bankers.

In consecutive interviews on TV channels recently, Mr Sehri claimed that Mr Sharif terminated his service because he investigated cases of Hudaibya Engineering and the Lahore-Islamabad Motorway.

He alleged that Javed Kayani, a family friend of the Sharifs, opened fictitious accounts in a branch of the Habib Bank AG-Zurich on Lahore’s Davis Road.

Though the JIT has so far not summoned Mr Sehri, the sources said its members or supporting staff might visit the UK to record his statement in the coming days.

It may be mentioned here that the JIT would resume questioning members of the Sharif family from July 2 when Tariq Shafi would appear before it. Hassan Nawaz will appear before the JIT on July 3, Hussain Nawaz on July 4 and Maryam Nawaz on July 5.

The Supreme Court has directed the JIT to complete its investigation and submit a final report by July 10.

SECP submits additional record

The Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) on Friday submitted additional record related to the companies of the Sharif family to the JIT.

A five-member SECP team headed by the head of Companies Registration Office (CRO) based in Lahore handed over dozens of bulky files to the six-member JIT.

The commission provided the record related to Hudaibya Paper Mills, Chaudhry Sugar Mills and Ittefaq Foundries to the JIT.

Published in Dawn, July 1st, 2017