ISLAMABAD, Nov 23: In his concluding testimony before the accountability court in the Al-Azizia reference, former prime minister Nawaz Sharif toned down his stance about the civil-military conflict and confined himself to financial strength of his late father, past achievements and legal points to defend his case.
In his earlier statement recorded in the Avenfield properties reference, he linked that reference with the civil-military conflict, Dawn reported.
Whenever a politician is booked under the typical charges of ‘assets beyond means’, it basically means that the accusers have no proof of such allegations,? Mr Sharif said.
Addressing accountability court Judge Mohammad Arshad Malik, the former premier said his father had established the steel industry in 1937, but he had dissociated himself from the family business 40 years ago.
He said his sons were financially independent adults and had been managing their business in compliance with laws of the country they lived in and, therefore, it did not make any sense to tie him with their financial dealings.
There was no proof of wrongdoing presented during the course of this never-ending investigation, the most substantial proof of which was the statement by Wajid Zia, head of the Joint Investigation Team constituted by the Supreme Court in the Panama Papers case, he added.
Mr Sharif claimed that Mr Zia had admitted under oath before the accountability court that there was no proof of all the allegations levelled against him. He said he felt proud that despite dragging every member of his family from his ancestors to his grandchildren, the investigators had not found a single penny of corruption, misappropriation or kickbacks, mainly because all this fiasco was run on speculations and anything run on baseless speculations could not last.
A case that started from allegations of corruption worth billions of rupees, mass money laundering and tax evasion eventually landed on the same clich tag of ‘assets beyond means’.
Mr Sharif said he had sacrificed politically, socially and domestically to prove his innocence before the law because his conscience and political career spanning over four decades had been clean. He added that he had suffered irreparable damage both politically and in his private life during this case, but he did not back down because he had faith in Allah Almighty and expectation of justice from the court.
?Pakistan today is blessed with the most efficient communication network of motorways from Peshawar to Karachi and the progress and development of Pakistan under Pakistan Muslim League -Nawaz (PML-N) is unprecedented in the 65 years preceding our service,? he said.
?We brought peace from the internal-strife-marred Balochistan to the law-and-order disaster of ‘body-bags’ and shutdowns in Karachi, restored a sense of well being among Pakistanis, pulled the country out of the deep shadows of extensive power outages and bloodshed, held crucial census, gave massive resources to boost key sectors of the republic vis-?-vis agriculture, education and healthcare, uprooted terrorism from the country and reincarnated foreign relations of Pakistan, brought massive investments into Pakistan with the CPEC leading with over 50 billion dollars, stood strong by our Kashmiri brethren and advocated their right to self-determination and the tyrannical occupation of India aggressively at all regional and international platforms,? the former premier said, adding that all these were glaring evidence of the fact that the PML-N had left a substantially better Pakistan for its people at the end of 2018 than what was handed to them in 2013.
?As far as this case is concerned, the honourable judge and the entire world are aware of what had been going on in the name of ‘accountability’ for the past two and half years. There is no precedent of such accountability in the entire history of the country,? he added.
Mr Sharif showed a photograph of 1970 in which then president General Yahya Khan was inspecting a railway engine at their factory. The accountability court judge asked the former premier to submit the photograph along with the date and name of the publication.
Later talking to the media, Mr Sharif said his family was among the leading industrialists even before the partition, adding that in January 1972, former prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto had nationalised Ittefaq Foundries in Lahore and in East Pakistan, Sheikh Mujeebur Rehman took over their factory in which over 10,000 employees had been working since the 1960s.
He said that in 1988, then prime minister Benazir Bhutto had ordered an inquiry into alleged theft of electricity against their factories, but the Wapda chairman exonerated the Sharif family and instead found that the distribution company had overcharged them Rs 50 million.
(UNI)
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