LAHORE – Three members of Joint Investigation Team formulated by the Supreme Court to probe offshore assets of Sharif family would be appearing before National Accountability Bureau to record their statements.
The accountability watchdog had summoned the members including the head of high-powered JIT Wajid Zia on Tuesday (today), before filing references against former first family in line with the top court’s July 28 verdict.
Highly placed sources revealed that after receiving input from the JIT members, NAB would finalize filing of four references against the Sharif family early next month.
Regarding summoning ISI and MI investigators, the sources disclosed that they would be called only if needed after a session with rest of the members.
The Joint Investigation Team was constituted by the apex court in its April 20th order to look into the wheelings and dealings of Sharif family.
The JIT members were Amer Aziz of the State Bank of Pakistan, Executive Director of the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan Bilal Rasool, NAB Director Irfan Naeem Mangi, Brig Muhammad Nauman Saeed of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and Brig Kamran Khurshid of the Military Intelligence (MI). The inquiry panel was headed by Federal Investigation Agency’s Additional Director, Wajid Zia.
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A few days back, Supreme Court’s Justice Ijaz-ul-Ahsan had permitted the graft buster to quiz the JIT members, as he was appointed the supervisory judge by Chief Justice Nasir ul Mulk to keep an eye on the implementation of Panama case verdict.
‘All legal requirements and formalities are fulfilled and to avoid any possible lacuna that may damage the case, led the head of the JIT and any other concerned member who had collected the relevant evidence pursuant to the directions passed by this court record their statement before NAB,’ said a communication issued by the Supreme Court registrar to Wajid Zia.
On the other hand, when NAB is gearing up to file references against the embattled Sharif family, former premier Nawaz Sharif, his children, and Finance Minister Ishaq Dar did not appear before NAB despite being issued summons twice.
The ‘House of Sharif’ through a written reply to NAB contended that the investigations were merely an eyewash and took the plea that as a review petition has been filed in the top court, so they could not record the statement before any decision is made on the petitions.
What could perturb the Sharif family is that NAB has also discussed the issuance of arrest warrants for them for failing to appear before it, however, NAB Chairman Qamar Zaman Chaudhry has the prerogative in this respect.
