For the first time in London last week the charges of corruption against Nawaz Sharif and his family seemed all too real. As part of its Correspondent series, the bbc, immediately after the Pakistan-South Africa match at Trentbridge, telecast a documentary based on corruption inquiries into the Sharif family conducted by a former supercop in Pakistan.
Rehman Malik, the man who until last year was Number Two in Pakistan's Federal Investigation Agency, survived imprisonment and a shooting attempt to smuggle himself under disguise into Britain and tell his story based on his files on Nawaz Sharif. And this is what he had to tell.
The Ittefad group of companies,set up by Sharif's father and six brothers,outgrew its humble origins to become one of the country's largest enterprises in the '80s. Its mills, says former Pakistan president Farooq Leghari on the basis of investigations, prospered by 'getting loans from nationalised commercial banks which were under the control of the government on assets not worth giving loans to, and then transferring those loans to other businesses or even transferring that money abroad'.
One such account, in the name of one Sulman Zia, was opened in '92 at the central Lahore branch of Habib Bank AG Zurich. The account showed mysterious deposits, among them a single traveller's cheque for $700,000. In another seven-month period, more than $1.5 million was deposited in traveller's cheques. That was besides hundreds of thousands of dollars paid into this account from US and Swiss banks.
Bank details described this Zia as an 'agriculturist' who lived at 'Main Bazaar, Sahiwal'. Below the address were instructions,'No correspondence.' There couldn't have been. For there's no Main Bazaar in Sahiwal, let alone a Sulman Zia to locate there. 'Sulman Zia is a fake man, he doesn't exist,' says Malik. Further investigations led the trail to Ilford, a town east of London, where the Qazis,this time a real family that owned a fashion boutique called Utter Nutter,were found to have paid millions into this account.
Suspicions were raised once the Qazis began receiving letters from banks asking for repayment of money loaned to the Sharifs, for whom the Qazis were evidently some sort of guarantors. One letter mentioned a loan of about $2 million paid to Hudabiya Engineering, a company owned by the Sharif family. It asked the Qazis 'to please arrange payment' of the $2 million in view of 'breach of financial obligation'.
Having established the Qazi-Sharif connection, the Zia mystery was also resolved. A declaration by Pakistani officials acting under the Sharif government had said that the Zia account was a real one, and that he did exist. He was a resident, they said, of Essex, where Ilford is located, and where the Qazi family live. Pakistani officials produced a passport number for Zia: 312783-S which corresponded with Kashif Qazi's.
Obviously, the Qazis had guaranteed loans the Sharifs didn't repay and which they didn't pay. At the same time, they were transferring money into an account in Lahore. The money in that account, according to Malik's assessment and investigation, belonged to the Sharifs. They 'moved money out in good times, and were bringing it back when they needed it'. It was a 'scheme to bring black money back into the country without it being taxed'. Investigations also show the Sharifs and the Qazis were known to each other and that they met through Ishaq Dar,who's now Pakistan's finance minister.
The case prepared by Malik in Pakistan didn't directly accuse Nawaz Sharif of corruption, but it did say that he had used his influence to help his family. An official fax from the premier's office had instructed full hospitality for the Qazis on their visit to Pakistan. For Malik, that clinched it.
Sharif's sufficiently close to his family, which now lives in four swank apartments on London's Park Lane. The apartments are in the name of a company in Virgin Islands, a known tax haven. On his last visit to these apartments, Sharif was embarrassed into an impromptu press conference.
The case prepared by Malik and his team had been presented to the court in Pakistan. But once Sharif was elected, the prosecution failed to provide witnesses from banks. Sharif then saw to it that Chief Justice Sajjad Ali Shah was removed. The case was abandoned. And Malik was imprisoned. He was released a year later because there were no further grounds for his detention. It was after he survived a shooting attempt that he decided to flee to Britain. Malik hasn't found all the answers to the Sharif mystery yet. But he intends to. And soon.
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