Court wants to know the name, other details

recorder report

ISLAMABAD: National Accountability Bureau (NAB) had demanded the name, contact number and address of beneficial and real owner of the Avenfield apartments in the mutual legal assistance (MLA) request sent last year by the anti-graft body in the follow-up of MLA request dispatched by the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) that investigated the Panama Papers case.

Prosecution witness and Director General (DG) NAB, Zahir Shah while testifying before the Accountability Court Judge Muhammad Bashir in the Avenfield reference said that it is correct that the name, contact number and address of beneficial and real owner of the Avenfield properties, held in the name of Nelson and Nescol companies since the time they appeared in the name of companies, were requisitioned in the MLA request sent by the NAB on October 31, 2017 in the follow-up of MLA request dispatched by JIT dated May 27, 2017.

Shah while recording his statement before the court produced an official copy of register of title, the record related to water bill and council tax statement of the Avenfield properties. The documents that he produced in the court were handed over to him by Osman Ahmad, a representative of the UK High Commission, on March 27, 2018 on behalf of the UK central authority, he said.

NAB Deputy Prosecutor General Sardar Muzaffar Abbasi and defense counsel Khawaja Haris exchanged harsh words at different points due to which the court adjourned hearing for a short interval. Both the defence and prosecution counsel demanded the court record the proceedings of the case. On this, the judge said he will make arrangement in this regard.

To a question asked by defense counsel Khawaj Haris, Shah said he did not read the documents in detail due to which he cannot say that these documents contain information related to the name, contact number, address of beneficial and real owner of Avenfield properties. “This is the job of investigation officer who can answer this question. As per my information, these documents did contain the name of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his sons.”

Haris again asked the witness if the entire purpose of the MLA request, dated October 31, 2017, was to find out the beneficial and real owner of the Avenfield properties then why he did not examine in detail the documents produced in the court.

To this Shah said, “My MLA request was initiated on the basis of request of investigation officer with regard to ownership and other matters related to the case. An MLA request was forwarded and the response of same request has been received which is to be correlated by the investigation officer with regard to ownership of Avenfield properties”.

Shah said he called the investigation officer on the same day when he received the documents but he came to his office on the following day to receive these documents. “The investigation officer did not associate me in the investigation after he obtained documents from me,” he said. The witness further said that “most probably” Osman received these documents through a diplomatic channel bag. He had been informed from the UK central authority about the dispatch of these documents but he had nothing in writing to show that such information was communicated to him.

The witness during his cross-examination said that in the MLA request dated October 31, 2017, he made the same request which had been made in MLA request dated May 27, 2017. After going through the contents of MLA request of May 27, 2017 he sent the MLA request dated October 31, 2017, he said.

To a question about Volume-10 of JIT report, Shah said that MLA dated 27, 2017 was part of the Volume-10 of the JIT report. The witness said he obtained a copy of Volume-10 after filing an application in the Supreme Court and the selected portion of the Volume-10 was given to the investigation officers.

He said that Supreme Court had allowed them to use Volume-10 for the required purposes. The court adjourned the hearing of case till Tuesday after defence counsel completed cross-examination of Shah.