ISLAMABAD: NAB has started working to turn two persons into approvers against the Sharif family and Finance Minister Ishaq Dar in the ongoing accountability cases.
Sources said that Javed Kayani and Saeed Ahmad are on the verge of becoming approvers.
One official even revealed that they had both already agreed. Issues relating to approvers are at the discretion of the NAB chairman.
One of them has already admitted before the Panama Papers case Joint Investigation Team (JIT) that he opened and operated ‘benami’ accounts – bank accounts in names of people not identified as beneficiaries – for money laundering on the direction of his uncle, who is a close friend of Nawaz Sharif.
The JIT probing the Sharif family’s offshore assets and alleged corruption claims that the PM and his family were the actual beneficiaries of these fictitious accounts and fraudulent transactions.
During its probe, the JIT had interrogated All Pakistan Sugar Mills Association Chairman Javed Kayani, who voluntarily admitted that in the 1990s he opened benami accounts for fraudulent transactions, acquiring loans, and transferring money into foreign banks.
He claimed that he opened these account on the direction of his maternal uncle Sheikh Saeed, who is a close friend of Sharif. The six-member JIT in the second volume of its report has presented statements of the Sharif family members and others.
“Illegally circulated money in various benami accounts and a few family accounts were used to acquire a loan for Hudabiya Mills. Huge parts of this were transferred from Benami accounts of Salman Zia and others to Shamrock and other offshore companies,” the report says.
It finds that Phil Barry, a US national, acted as a courier for Saeed, bringing unsigned traveller’s cheques from abroad, getting them converted with Kayani’s help, and to deliver them at Nawaz Sharif’s house in Model Town.
The JIT report had observed that the shady role of Kayani in opening the fictitious accounts has been proven beyond doubt through available certified banking record and the PM and his family members are the real beneficiaries of these fictitious and fraudulent transactions.
The probe team also told the Supreme Court that National Bank of Pakistan President Saeed Ahmad was also involved in fraudulent transactions in favour of the Sharif family. The team had recommended to the Supreme Court to include Ahmad’s name in the list of accused in Hudabiya Papers Mills case.
