June 14, 2007	Thursday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 28, 1428

ISLAMABAD, June 13: The Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) on Wednesday lashed out at the chief of the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) and former prime minister Nawaz Sharif for accusing the MQM of killing former Sindh Governor Hakim Mohammad Said.

Addressing a news conference, MQM’s parliamentary leader in the National Assembly Dr Farooq Sattar termed Nawaz Sharif’s statement contempt of court and said that the Sindh High Court had already acquitted MQM workers who had been implicated in the murder.

Dr Sattar was accompanied by Federal Minister for Communications Shamim Ahmed Siddiqui and MNAs Syed Haider Abbas Rizvi, Nawab Mirza, Akhlaque Abidi, Abdul Qadir Khanzada and Shabina Talat.

Mr Sattar said that he had spent almost a month with Nawaz and Shahbaz Sharif in the Attock Fort prison and during a meeting there, the two Sharifs had admitted that implicating the MQM in Hakim Said’s murder was a mistake.

He claimed that Nawaz Sharif had told him that the PML-N believed that Hakim Said’s murder was a conspiracy hatched by the establishment against his government.

Alleging that Mr Sharif had fled the country along with 101 boxes containing billions of rupees and jewellery, he said that all of it was looted wealth. He said that overseas Pakistanis still remembered the time when their foreign currency accounts had been frozen.

Warning Mr Sharif not to speak against the MQM, he said that Mr Sharif’s family, which owned only a small steel mill not so long ago, had turned steel barons thanks to the support of former military president Gen Ziaul Haq.