NAB gets hold of Swiss case record

[Lahore_Real_Estate]

By Syed Irfan Raza
Tuesday, 30 Mar, 2010 \


ISLAMABAD: The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has taken into possession the record of President Asif Ali Zardari’s Swiss cases.

The bureau’s officials informed the Supreme Court of the move while submitting a report on Monday regarding progress on cases reopened after scrapping of the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO), which had provided immunity to politicians and bureaucrats in corruption cases.

According to sources, a team of the bureau sent to the United Kingdom recently carried away 12 boxes containing record of the cases from Pakistan’s High Commission in London.

The record was taken possession of after inspection and satisfaction that all documents were in place. “We matched the documents with the inventory already available with the NAB,” an official said.

The inventory was prepared some four months ago when the High Commissioner to London, Wajid Shamsul Hassan, received the boxes from a Swiss lawyer who was pursuing the cases on behalf of the government.

The team, headed by Mohammad Ashfaq, is still in London and it is expected that instead of taking the record back to Pakistan it will be placed in a safe house of an international anti-corruption agency.

If the cases are reopened, the record will be moved to Switzerland.

NAB took the record in its possession on the directives of the Supreme Court so that money laundering cases against President Zardari, which have been revived after scrapping of the NRO, can be pursued.

The bureau has also asked the law ministry about the procedure to be adopted to pursue cases against the president in a Swiss court under directives of the apex court.

There are reports that more than Rs666 million was paid by the bureau through the High Commission as fees and other expenses between 1999 and 2008 to foreign lawyers, including those acting as go-between.

According to sources, the bureau was barred by the law ministry from directly approaching the Swiss government because the government believes that the president enjoys immunity under Article 248 of the Constitution. A fresh order of the Supreme Court regarding reopening of the Swiss cases is being assessed by the law division.