F.P. Report
ISLAMABAD: Calling the narrative being built by Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) on the reported exoneration of its President Shehbaz Sharif from money laundering charges by a court in London as ‘fake’, Adviser to Prime Minister on Accountability and Interior Mirza Shahzad Akbar said on Tuesday it was wrong to say that the PML-N president had been given a ‘clean chit’ in the case.
Addressing a press conference in Islamabad, Shahzad Akbar said the truth of the matter was that no case had been registered against Shehbaz in London, and that there was no mention of Shehbaz’s name in the court verdict.
He said UK’s National Crime Agency had carried out the probe into two ‘suspicious’ bank accounts of Shehbaz’s son Suleman Shehbaz.
He said contrary to the impression being given on the media that it was the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) that had approached the Agency for investigation into money laundering allegations against PML-N president, the fact was that NAB had nothing to do with it. “UK’s National Crime Agency had only asked us for the record of the cases involving Shehbaz’s sons,” he clarified.
United Kingdom’s (UK) West Minister Court on Monday had acquitted Shehbaz Sharif and his son Suleman in a money laundering case.
According to the media report, the UK court also restored the frozen accounts of Shehbaz Sharif and Suleman Shehbaz in the same case.
The National Crime Agency of the UK made 20 month-long investigations but couldn’t find any evidence of money laundering or any other criminal activity.
The agency submitted its final report in the Westminster Court and gave a clean chit to the Sharif family members.
On the agency’s investigative report, the court declared Shehbaz Sharif and his son Salman Shehbaz “Not Guilty” in the money laundering case and restored their bank accounts.
The UK agency held investigations on a request from Pakistan against Shehbaz Sharif and his family. Bank accounts of Shehbaz Sharif and Salman Shehbaz were frozen by the British agency in December 2019.
