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Friday March 29, 2024

NAB collects ‘evidence’ against Sharif family in Avenfield case

By Usman Manzoor
January 10, 2018

ISLAMABAD: The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) while on the hunt to collect evidence against scions of Mian Nawaz Sharif to file supplementary reference in Avenfield case has so far “managed” to collect video interview of Hussain Nawaz given to BBC and other video statements from Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority given to Pakistani news channels.

Well-placed sources in the NAB told The News that in a bid to give the files semblance of some evidence, NAB has “collected” some “evidence” that would be produced before the accountability court soon as supplementary evidence.

Only time would tell how the court would react to such evidence but NAB sources say that NAB would try to establish contradictions in the different interviews of members of Sharif family given to different television channels regarding ownership of Avenfield apartments.

Chairman NAB has also met Foreign Secretary to speed up the process of repossession of documents regarding the Avenfield properties case, through diplomatic sources. A NAB team also visited United Kingdom last month and returned with recorded statements of two important witnesses in London and those statements would also be part of the supplementary reference.

A team of the NAB reached London on December 12th to meet with the Home Office officials in relation to the Avenfield flats owned by Hasan and Hussain Nawaz and returned on December 19th.

The sources said that the NAB team has recorded the statement of one Akhtar Raja of Quist law firm, a loss-making law firm in UK. Raja happens to be cousin of JIT’s head Wajid Zia who hired him to work for the JIT in UK. Raja was paid hefty by the JIT. The sources said that Akhtar Raja has endorsed what the JIT had attributed to him.

Secondly, NAB investigators have also taken the statement of Robert W. Radley of Radley Forensic Document Laboratory who was hired by the JIT to examine the documents presented by the Sharif family regarding Avenfiled apartments, the sources added.

Radley had identified that the type of font used in the Trust Deed declarations was ‘Calibri’. However, the font was not commercially available before Jan 31, 2007 and as such, neither of the documents is correctly dated nor appears to have been created at some later point in time. The sources said that Mr Radley too has endorsed what he had given in writing to the JIT regarding the Calibri font controversy.

NAB want to file the supplementary reference in Avenfiled apartment case before Wajid Zia’s statement in the accountability court. The NAB has filed four corruption references against the Sharif family and Ishaq Dar related to their Avenfield properties, multiple companies that include Flagship Investments, Hartstone properties, Que Holdings, Quaint Flagship Securities, Quaint Gloucester Place, Quaint Paddington, Flagship Developments, Alanna Services (BVI), Quaint Eaton Place 2, Quaint Saloane, Lankin SA (BVI), Chadron, Ansbacher, Coomber and Capital FZE, Dubai, Azizia Steel Mills and Hill Metals.