Broadsheet CEO says Pakistan, UK didn’t act on his complaints

OXFORD: The Broadsheet owner Kaveh Moussavi has said he cannot verify whether the person who met him in 2012 and allegedly offered him bribes on behalf of Nawaz Sharif was acting on his behalf or not but he did offer him US$25 million and had his pictures with the former premier.

In an interview here at his home in Oxford, Moussavi claimed that he agreed to get in touch with PM Imran Khan government in good faith to see if a new deal can be signed to trace alleged assets of anyone the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) government may be interested in but the communication fell apart as a senior government official asked for bribes and cuts of millions of dollars on the new proposed deal.

Kaveh Moussavi made headlines when he claimed this week that Nawaz Sharif had offered him bribes in 2012.

He said about Anjum Dar: “There is no way I can verify beyond the evidence he presented which is some photographs and he made one phone call purportedly to Mr Sharif. I have no way of knowing who the person was on the other end as the conversation was in Urdu and I don’t understand Urdu. Mr Dar made an offer of US$25 Million. I told him you should be talking to my lawyers not me because it will be messy if you pay me. He said it’s not a bribe. I said let’s do it through my lawyers and we didn’t go far.”

Kaveh Moussavi made new allegations and claimed that PPP’s Senator Farooq Naek and some PPP leaders in the UK also offered him bribes. The News believes that these are just claims and there is no proof available. Mr Naek didn’t pick up his phone yesterday.

Moussavi claimed that Senator Farooq Naek “offered payments” during meetings in London and then there was PPP’s “Mr Shah” and “Mr Raja” who offered the bribes too in exchange for not chasing the cases of Asif Ali Zaradri. “Mr Raja had Asif Ali Zardari’s Rolls Royce parked outside his house so he was credible.”

Kaveh Moussavi claimed that he immediately approached these approaches through his lawyers to Pakistani authorities and the National Crime Agency (NCA) but no action was taken in Pakistan and the UK. He also reported the official who asked for bribes but nothing happened.

Moussavi criticized PM Imran Khan’s advisor Shahzad Akbar and accused him of having an “agenda” for suggesting that the Broadsheet owner “skimmed” Pakistan and did nothing to bring back assets as promised in the contract. He claimed that Aftab Sherpao’s assets in Jersey as well as assets of Admiral Mansoor-ul-Haq and a few business groups were obtained by Pakistan as a result of his investigation.

Moussavi said the alleged Pakistani official he met in the summer of 2019 asked for commission of “millions of US Dollars” if he helped him to get the contract to trace the alleged US$1 billion of Nawaz Sharif in some Singapore bank and also help in the Reko Diq case. “I walked out of the café after paying for my café.”

When asked about his claim that he had considered a portion of the US$29 million to the Pakistan government, Moussavi said he will not return any money to the government but would consider working on educational projects through the charity sector because “I don’t want the same money stolen”. When asked if he had access to the full money seized through the court order, he said didn’t have access to the money as its in Isle of Man under the liquidator’s control who will eventually give him around half of the amount. He said the government of Pakistan has not taken his evidence seriously which is a disservice to the nation.