No plan to freeze foreign accounts of the NRO beneficiaries

[LahoreEstate]

Sunday, November 22, 2009

By Dilshad Azeem

ISLAMABAD: The government does not plan to freeze the foreign accounts, particularly those in Switzerland, of the NRO beneficiaries. However, Swiss or London courts can be moved on the ground that the corruption cases which were earlier quashed under the NRO are going to re-open.

“Our laws do not contain anything that we should tell foreign courts about our latest decision and provide them with the list of the NRO beneficiaries,” Minister of State for Law and Justice Afzal Sindhu told The News.

Sindhu said the list of the NRO beneficiaries was announced only for the people of Pakistan, and not for the whole world or foreign courts. He, however, admitted that the NRO was also used to get cases cleared from foreign courts as the concerned authorities and the NAB prosecutors pleaded for the same after the promulgation of the ordinance.

“These kind of cases fall under the category of the sovereignty guarantee of the government of Pakistan. And in my opinion, the foreign accounts’ cases stand withdrawn and cannot be re-opened.”

At the same time, a PPP federal minister, not a beneficiary of the ordinance, said the courts in other countries could take up the cases without the government’s involvement. “But President Zardari is out of accountability ambit till he is holding the top office,” he said.

PML-N leader Khwaja Muhammad Asif told The News that there were two famous cases in foreign courts ñ one about the ownership of $60 million Swiss accounts and the other about the ownership of the Surrey Palace. “These cases should be reopened in order to know the source of income,” he said.

Khwaja Asif said the law minister concealed the corruption amount of the NRO beneficiaries. “This was the reason behind the delay in making public the list.”

A National Accountability Bureau (NAB) official was of the view that the Supreme Court would give a judgment as to whether these foreign accounts should be re-opened or not.

http://thenews.com.pk/top_story_detail.asp?Id=25716