Who is Barrister Zia Nasim of Assets Recovery Unit?

LONDON: A British Pakistani lawyer who moved from London to Pakistan to work as a legal expert with the Assets Recovery Unit (ARU) is at the centre of the on-going Justice Qazi Faez Isa case being heard by a ten-member larger bench of the Supreme Court of Pakistan – the judges have heard that property details of three children of Justice Isa were obtained by Barrister Zia Nasim.

Barrister Zia Nasim’s name appears on papers submitted before the ten-member larger bench of the Supreme Court as the person responsible for sourcing the reports on Qazi Faez Isa’s children through a tracing UK firm.

On his Twitter account, Barrister Zia Nasim describes himself as currently “working at the Assets Recovery Unit (ARU), Prime Minister Office Islamabad, specialist in Extradition Law, Civil, Criminal & Sovereign Asset Recovery”.

The court has heard that British-born Zia-Ul-Mustafa Nasim was appointed as an expert in international law to help the Assets Recovery Unit (ARU). Zia Nasim’s name appears as respondent number nine in the list while other respondents include the President, Prime Minister, Attorney General, Law Minister and Mirza Shahzad Akbar, head of the ARU.

Documents produced in the Supreme Court this week show that the selection board recommended Zia Nasim and Prime Minister Imran Khan approved his appointment as Justice Isa has challenged his role in the reference against him.

The SC bench is headed by Justice Umar Ata Bandial and comprised of Justice Maqbool Baqar, Justice Manzoor Ahmad Malik, Justice Faisal Arab, Justice Mazhar Alam Khan Miankhel, Justice Munib Akhtar, Justice Sajjad Ali Shah, Justice Syed Mansoor Ali Shah, Justice Yahya Afridi and Justice Qazi Muhammad Amin Ahmed. The Supreme Judicial Council (SJC) against Justice Isa initiated the proceedings on allegations that he obtained three properties in London in the name of his wife and children between 2011 and 2015 - but did not allegedly disclose them in wealth returns declared in Pakistan.

According to a report submitted in the court by ARU’s Barrister Zia Nasim, Justice Isa’s wife Zarina Montserrat Carrera, who moved to Pakistan after getting married to Qazi Faez Isa, owns one property under her name. Zarina Carrera bought a two bedroom flat on Kendal Street on 20.10.2011 against the estimated price of £300,000. The flat is on the sixth floor of the apartment block.

Zarina Carrera and her son Arsalan Isa Khosa bought a house jointly in March of 2013 for the price of £245,000 in Walthamstow, East London. The title deed shows that the transaction went through on 27 March 2013. 40 Oakdale Road, E11, is free of mortgage.

Justice Khosa’s daughter Sehr Isa Khoso and Zarina Montserrat Carrera bought an East London house for the price of £270,000 on 28 June 2013. 50 Coniston Court on Kendal Street is a leasehold property.

According to an investigation by this reporter, Justice Isa’s wife Zarina Carrera is half Spanish and has always had a Spanish passport. His son Arsalan Isa Khosa holds a doctorate from Birkbeck University and daughter Sehr Isa Khoso is a trained Barrister - she is a British national and married to a British national professional. Both Arsalan and Sehr have lived and worked in the UK for decades.

In a separate report, Barrister Zia Nasim has told the court that he was “instructed to provide details of current and former residents living at the three properties”. The report to the SC says that a tracing agency agent from by the name of ‘Find UK People’ in the UK was instructed to undertake a search and provide a detailed report on the resident at the three subject properties from official sources. The report says the tracing firm was able to provide this information after acquiring data from various sources including electoral roll and data from Credit Reference Agency.

The Land Registry record shows that searches on all three properties were made on 23rd April 2019.

So, who is Zia Nasim?

Zia Nasim is son of Hafiz Muhammad Nasim who was Imam at Cricklewood and Acton Mosque in North West London. Hafiz Nasim is a well-known British Muslim community figure and his family runs real estate business in the local area.

Zia Nasim did his graduation from University of London and UK Bar Council website shows he did his bar in 2001 from Lincoln’s Inn. He worked as a ‘Legal Consultant’ with the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) for a few years during the PPP and PML-N tenures but later returned to the UK where he practiced with senior Barrister Alun Jones QC. He remained involved in Swiss cases against Asif Ali Zardari for sometime as well and advised Pakistani authorities. He assumed charge with ARU in January 2019 after PTI govt came into power.

Few months ago, The News and Geo had reported that Barrister Zia Nasim accompanied Shahzad Akbar during his visits to the UK to discuss ongoing cases. He has attended meeting with Shahzad Akbar at the Home Office, National Crime Agency (NCA) and Pakistan High Commission.

Zia-Ul-Mustafa Nasim has also been involved in the bringing back of the frozen funds of a leading Pakistani businessman and extradition case of Ishaq Dar, the former finance minister of Pakistan.

Documents in the court confirm that Barrister Zia Nasim instructed the tracing agency in the UK to locate details of people living at the properties of Justice Isa’s family members.

Hiring tracing agencies in the UK is legal and services of such firms are hired routinely and these firms operate within legal means. Most of these firms are run by retired police officers, former detectives and lawyers.

These firms use publicly available data and deep search methods to find details of what they call 'targets'. In the past, the same firms have been accused of hacking private information of the subjects. The hacking scandal that led to the closure of Rupert Murdoch’s News of the World originated from the excesses done by the private detective agencies. Several newspaper including The Sun and The Mirror continue to face hacking cases in court. In the last few years, cases totally tens of millions of pounds have been settled with the victims of hacking. There’s no suggestion that any illicit means were used to obtain details of Qazi Faez’s children.

A source at Pakistan High Commission said that the ARU didn’t use services of the High Commission for hiring the detective firm and no communication was made as such. It’s believed that Zia Nasim used his own means to hire the firm.