Panama Papers: Benazir Bhutto's oil firm paid huge bribes to Iraqi President Saddam Hussain for contracts

LAHORE (Staff Report) - Panama Papers -a 2.6 terabyte confidential leak that comprises of details of shady businesses of global elite families and politician- are definitely a matter worth worrying about for Pakistan, as two of the country's most powerful political families (Bhutto Family and Sharif Family) have also been listed in the leak.

According to documents shared by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, Pakistan's two-time Prime Minister and Chairperson of Pakistan People's Party (PPP) Benazir Bhutto -who was assassinated by Taliban in 2007- was also among the clients of Mossack Fonseca (MF) along with her close aide Senator Rehman Malik and nephew Hassan Ali Jaffery Bhutto.

The leak said that Bhutto and her partners paid huge bribes to then Iraqi government -led by President Saddam Hussain- in 2000 to win oil contracts for their Sharjah based company Petrofine FZC and later established a company named Petroline International Incorporation in British Virgin Islands in 2001.

Mossack Fonseca’s (MF) records suggest that Benazir Bhutto's second company, Petroline International Incorporation, was refused to be accepted as client by the law firm for being a politically sensitive group.



In 2005, an investigation into United Nation’s oil-for-food program in Iraq revealed that Bhutto's firm paid US$ 2 million to President Saddam Hussain and in return they earned oil contracts of worth US$115-145 million. The probe was led by former head of US federal reserves Paul Volker.

In the later year, 2006, Pakistan's National Accountability Bureau (NAB) also claimed that Petrofine FZC was owned by Benazir Bhutto but she and her party, PPP, strongly dismissed the charges and called it an political conspiracy against them.

Mossack Fonseca also revealed that Pakistan's incumbent Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, his sons Hussain Nawaz and Hasan Nawaz, and daughter Mariam Safdar set up at least four offshore companies in British Virgin Islands (BVI). These companies owned at least six upmarket properties overlooking London’s Hyde Park.

Sharif family mortgaged four of these properties to the Deutsche Bank (Suisse) SA for a loan of GBP 7 million and the Bank of Scotland part financed the purchase of two other apartments.