Broadsheet did nothing to trace assets, failed: Gen Amjad

LONDON: The Broadsheet LLC did absolutely nothing to bring back the looted assets to Pakistan, lied and exaggerated. Former NAB Prosecutor General Farouk Adam Khan’s son secretly worked for a Broadsheet partner and the Broadsheet agreement was signed without approval from the relevant ministers.

Broadsheet used the info provided by NAB to make claims on the “targets” without any results, said NAB’s former chairman General (retd) Syed Amjad, who signed the contract with the Broadsheet LLC on behalf of the State of Pakistan/NAB.

This correspondent has seen hundreds of pages of correspondence between NAB and Trouvons (which later turned into Broadsheet LLC, Isle of Man), court documents and General Amjad’s testimony before Sir Anthony Evans, the arbitration judge at the London High Court, who found that the Pakistan government criminally conspired to defraud Broadsheet LLC through contractual violations.

General Amjad told the court that looking back some 15 years, he regretted that he perhaps trusted Farouk Adam Khan too much as it was Khan, who should have obtained approval of the Broadsheet agreement from the Law and Finance ministers but he didn’t do that and later it turned out that Farouk Adam Khan’s son was employed by David Orchard -- who along with Dr Pepper -- advised Trouvons.

As already reported in The News, the Broadsheet agreement was approved and signed by General (retd) Amjad after he visited Broadsheet LLC (Trouvons LLC) office in Colorado, USA, in April 2000 where false presentations were given, a scripted showcase was organised and brochures carrying false and baseless claims of assets recovery were shown to the visiting Pakistani delegation.

According to General Amjad, Broadsheet “did next to nothing concrete to assist NAB in receiving assets outside Pakistan through their investigations”, failed to provide NAB with any useful information and “failed to repatriate any assets back to Pakistan”.

According to General Amjad, Broadsheet failed to provide “the type of proofs of foreign assets” that Pakistan needed and “failed to achieve the repatriation of any foreign assets back to Pakistan”. General Amjad told the arbitration judge that the people at the Broadsheet “were certainly not providing the level of assistance that we had been led to believe they would”.

In his witness statement, General Amjad told the court that Broadsheet found nothing for Pakistan as per its claims and the list of nearly 200 “targets” and their files were passed to Broadsheet by NAB and the only help was provided in the case of Admiral (retd) Mansur-ul-Haq’s foreign assets whose details were passed to Broadsheet as a “target” by NAB.

General Amjad said NAB was already investigating Admiral Haq prior to the agreement between NAB and Broadsheet and in late 1999 his detention orders were passed.

The court papers confirm that in October 1999, General Amjad became aware of the GSA Investment Corporation Ltd and Trouvons LLC through Tariq Fawad Malik and Ghazanfar Sadiq Ali, who told General Amjad that a foreign company called Trouvons could assist NAB for the speedy recovery of assets that had been “corruptly obtained and secreted outside of Pakistan”.

They convinced General Amjad that an agreement with a foreign investigation company to find assets secreted away in locations abroad would not cost Pakistan any money and all they would need is a power of attorney to initiate legal proceedings against the “targets” and Pakistan should sit back and see how billions of dollars would be brought back within months.

General Amjad visited the Colorado, USA, office of Trouvons where he met Jerry James and Dr William Pepper as the main people behind Trouvons.

At that meeting, General Amjad shared with James and Pepper that he thought that a lot of assets have been removed from Pakistan by corrupt public and private sector officials and placed all over the world.

Jerry James and Dr Pepper told General Amjad, falsely, that they were exceptionally connected to the US, UK and other jurisdictions and that they would be repatriating billions of “ill gotten” assets for the benefit of the people of Pakistan.

They assured that Trouvons would fund all of the investigations and other efforts to recover assets in the first instance. General Amjad believed in everything they promised.

After visiting Colorado, General Amjad tasked Farouk Khan to undertake the negotiations on behalf of NAB and to draft a “suitable agreement” stressing that the agreement should be only about “assets outside of Pakistan” and “not to relate to assets inside of Pakistan", that Broadsheet would not claim on assets recovered inside Pakistan and that 20pc share would be given once foreign assets recovered, repatriated to Pakistan and through an escrow account.

General Amjad signed the agreement with Broadsheet LLC on June, 20, 2000 and with International Assets Recovery (IAR) on July 15, 2000.

General Amjad accepted that he didn’t concern himself too much when he came to know that the company that was signing the contract was Broadsheet LLC and not Trouvons. General Amjad said he had asked Farouk Adam Khan to ensure that the agreement is vetted by the Ministry of Law and the Ministry of Finance so their approval could be obtained but Farouk Adam Khan “failed to send the draft agreement to the relevant ministers” and failed to obtain their approval.

According to General Amjad, he realised much later in life that he might have trusted Farouk Khan too much. The court documents show that General Amjad interviewed Farouk Adam Khan for the post of NAB Prosecutor General, both of them were former alumni of Lawrence College and members of the alumni society called Gallians.

Farouk Adam Khan had attended the Pakistan Military Academy, Sandhurst Military Academy and was awarded the Sitara-e-Jurat in the India Pakistan war of 1965. He was jailed in 1974 for his involvement in the unsuccessful coup called the Attock Conspiracy and studied law while in prison – going to become a prosecutor for NAB.

General Amjad said he personally gave office to Broadsheet in NAB offices at no cost to facilitate the recovery of wealth and gave full access to information and provided all documents, including on Asif Zardari and Benazir Bhutto and provided help to Broadsheet, including through FIA, State Bank, NAB and other organisations with the hope that Broadsheet and IAR would use this help as a springboard to trace the assets in material and concrete aspects. He said he realised soon that “Broadsheet seemed to have grossly misrepresented and exaggerated their competencies and resources with respect to their asset recovery programme”.

General Amjad told the judge in his statement “certain targets were more important than others”. It’s understood that the prime targets were Nawaz Sharif and family, Asif Ali Zardari and Benazir Bhutto.

He informed the court that the UK had been withholding documents from NAB in relation to the cases on Asif Zardari and Benazir Bhutto but he was able to get “large number of documents” from the UK after he met the UK officials in 2000.

Broadsheet, he said in his witness statement, didn’t actively or consistently try to fulfill any of its obligations under the Broadsheet agreement. General Amjad served as NAB Chairman from November 16, 1999 to September 25, 2000 and retired from the services on December 27, 2002.