The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has finally obtained the confidential volume of the report compiled by a six-member high-powered inquiry panel constituted by the Supreme Court (SC) to investigate the Sharif family’s offshore wealth in relation to the Panama Papers leaks.
In the Panamagate case verdict, the apex court ordered the top accountability body to file references against the ruling family within six weeks before the accountability court of Rawalpindi-Islamabad on the basis of the material collected and referred to by the joint investigation team (JIT) that probed into the Sharifs’ offshore assets as revealed in April last year
Earlier, the registrar office of the top court declined two requests by the anti-graft body for provision of certified copies of all volumes for filing references against former prime minister Nawaz Sharif and his children in line with the July 28 verdict. However, the SC registrar provided NAB with the 415-page volume on the institution’s third request on Thursday.
On July 10, the JIT had requested the apex court to keep the said volume confidential as according to JIT head Wajid Zia, it could help in carrying out further investigations. Later, the Sharif family’s counsel Khawaja Haris filed an application requesting the SC to make volume 10 public.
However, during the hearing, when the apex court’s three-judge bench – headed by Justice Ejaz Afzal Khan – asked the counsel to examine specific pages of the volume, Haris himself withdrew his request. Details of Mutual Legal Assistance (MLA) requests have been mentioned in volume 10.
In its volume-1, the report said the JIT contacted authorities in six countries for MLA. These included British Virgin Islands’ attorney general, the UK Home Office, Saudi Arabia’s ministry of interior, UAE’s ministry of justice, Switzerland’s Central Authority, and Luxemburg’s prosecutor general.
