recorder report

ISLAMABAD: Former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was the actual beneficial owner of Hill Metals Establishment (HME) and his son Hussain Nawaz ostensibly owned this business as benamidar of his father.

This was stated by key prosecution witness Wajid Zia here on Tuesday while testifying before Accountability Court Judge Muhammad Bashir in the Al-Azizia Steel Mills and Hill Metals Establishment references. Zia said as per available evidence, Sharif was the beneficial owner of HME ostensibly owned by Hussain Nawaz who practically was reduced to the status of his (Sharif’s) benamidar.

Nawaz Sharif, Maryam Nawaz and Captain Muhammad Safdar (retd) were present in the court during the proceedings and they were later allowed to go.

While recording his statement, Zia said that accused Hussain Nawaz and Hassan Nawaz through their concise statement contended that a new steel mill manufacturing business was started in 2006 by Hussain by utilizing the proceeds of the Al-Aziza Steel Company.

The witness said that the accused submitted Al-Dar Audit Bureau letter dated January 19, 2017 along with the application. “A table was also attached with this letter showing the profit after tax and cash balance for the year 2010 to 2015. The letter stated that they had traced the figure from financial statements for the relevant years,” he said.

He said that accused were asked to produce the financial statements and other documents to the JIT to properly examine whether the HME was financially in a position to get such a huge amount of money. Accused Hussain despite his clear admission in Al-Dar Audit Bureau letter about the availability of the financial statement did not provide the same, he said.

He said that accused Hussain was also asked to provide other documents like memorandum of article of association, loan documents or banking record credited to HME, but he did not provide the relevant documents. He provided the loans document but they were not from the relevant period when the HME was being established.

“The JIT had obtained the banking transaction showing its remittances from Hussain and HME to Nawaz Sharif and from Nawaz Sharif to his daughter Maryam Safdar,” he said.

He said that a cash flow chart based on the banking transaction was prepared by the JIT. The JIT also prepared a table which provides the amount of remittances sent by Hussain and HME to Nawaz Sharif (as per banking transaction and the profit after tax position) for the year 2010 to 2016. Zia said that it shows that about $9.9 million was profit after tax of HME and $8.9 million out of these were sent by Hussain to his father Sharif during the period from 2010 to 2015. Thus 88 percent of the profit has been sent from Hussain to Nawaz Sharif during this period.

He said that it is also clear that there is no correlation between the profit/ loss and the amount being sent as gift or remittances for a particular year. In the year 2010 when the company earned a profit of about $588,000, about $1.5 million were sent by Hussain to accused Sharif, he said.

Similarly, in the year 2015, the company actually made a loss of $1.5 million but still it sent $2.1 million to Sharif as remittances. He said that accused Hassan in his statement stated that he received about GBP800,000 in the year 2015 from Hussain which would be over and above the amount sent to Sharif in 2015 while the company was making loss.

The JIT concluded that as the banking record, accused Hussain sent 88 percent profit to the accused Nawaz Sharif. After Zia concluded his statement the court adjourned the hearing till today (Wednesday).

Defense counsel Khawaja Haris will start cross-examination of the witness on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, the court started process for recording the statements of accused Nawaz Sharif, Maryam and Safdar under section 342 of CrPC in Avenfield reference.