KARACHI: Defence Minister Khawaja Asif on Thursday claimed that the much talked-about “confessional statement” of Ishaq Dar, the present finance minister, submitted to the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) during the Pervez Musharraf regime, was obtained “under duress” when he was under detention and that he was witness to the mental torture Mr Dar had been going through at the time.

“Being a political worker I don’t think that it would be decent for me to describe my ordeal and what I faced when I was imprisoned following Gen Musharraf’s coup in October 1999,” Mr Asif said in a television talk show. “But I would like to say that Ishaq Dar was held at a house [detention centre] till February 2000 and was repeatedly subjected to interrogation during this period, leaving no choice for him but to give such a statement,” he said while talking to Geo News.

According to him, both of them were first taken to Chamba House on Feb 11, 2000, and later shifted to the Attock fort for further interrogation.

During this period Ishaq Dar had submitted a handwritten “confessional statement” regarding money laundering in the Hudaibya Paper Mills reference before a magistrate on April 25, 2000.

The NAB document of the time, and now submitted before the Supreme Court, states that Mr Dar in his “confessional statement” had admitted that the Sharif family was involved in money laundering of $14.86 million, and through him had opened bank accounts under the names of Sikandar Masood Qazi and Talat Masood Qazi, which were being operated by Mr Dar.

Khawaja Asif claimed that during the course of interrogation and detentions, several employees of Ittefaq Foundry were kept in detention centres and were constantly tortured.

When being tortured, they pointed their fingers towards Mr Dar, claiming that he alone had all the answers, he said. As Mr Dar was already under severe mental torture, he agreed to give such a statement which, according to Khawaja Asif, was given “under duress”.

“When they were tortured to reveal information about the businesses of Ittefaq Foundry, they put all the blame on Ishaq Dar. As a result, he [Dar] came under immense pressure,” Khawaja Asif said. According to him when he met Mr Dar on the morning of Feb 8 or 9, 2000, he found the latter had lost more than 30 pounds.

The defence minister was of the view that Mr Dar was a professional, not a political worker, “so forcing him into issuing a statement was not a big deal”.

He praised Mr Dar for facing immense pressure for a lot of time. “I do believe Dar showed steadfastness and tackled pressure well.”

“He was detained for 23 months,” Khawaja Asif said, adding that later it was proved that the statements were taken “under duress”.

“I was imprisoned in a 4 by 6 feet cell, in solitary confinement,” he said. “The confessional statement was taken in such scenarios.”

Dar’s ‘confessions’

Although the present finance minister has repeatedly stated that his “confessional statement” was taken “under duress”, it has once again become a topic of intense debate following its submission by NAB before the Supreme Court bench hearing the Panamagate case. The controversial statement, copy of which is available with Dawn, provides graphic details of how Mr Dar was instrumental in laundering millions of dollars of the Sharif family through ‘benami’ (nameless) bank accounts, that were in the names of some individuals but were being operated by Mr. Dar and another employees of the Modarba he had been managing.

In the aftermath of Pervez Musharraf’s coup d’état in 1999, the then ousted prime minister’s close aide Ishaq Dar had been facing several hardships.

In his “confessional statement” on April 4, 2000, in connection with the Hudabya Papers Mills Limited (HPML) case, Dar has given details of a “Qazi family” members, who were known to him and had become the link between him and the Sharif family, and whose names were later used to open the so-called ‘benami’ accounts to launder huge sums of money.

The “confessional statement” stated that he established a Modarba company, named First Hajveri Modarba Company (FHMC), a non-banking financial institution (NDFI), in 1990 and the company started its functions the next year with a paid-up capital of Rs 150 million.

The document quotes Ishaq Dar as saying that “in early 1992, Mian Nawaz Sharif, who was then prime minister of Pakistan, contacted me and requested to provide credit line of approximately Rs100 million to the business concerns of his family, from my Modarba... subsequently, he sent me the photo copies of the passports of Mrs Sikandar Masood Qazi, Nuzhat Gohar, Talat Masood Qazi and Kashif Masood Qazi (family members of Masood Qazi).

“He asked me to open/operate foreign currency accounts in their names in different banks with the foreign currency funds provided by the Sharif family,” it reads.

The statement reveals that Dar had reservations in opening/operating these “Benami Accounts”, but he was assured by Nawaz Sharif that “Qazis have agreed that their their names can be used”.

Fuurthermore, he stated, he was told that with promulgation of the Protection of Economic Reforms Act, 1992 by the Pakistan Muslims League-led government, all the foreign currency accounts had immunity against any inquiry or investigation by any department or agency.”

Under these circumstance, the “confessional statement” says, Dar was asked by Nawaz Sharif to open four Benami foreign currency accounts in the names of Sikandar Masood Qazi, Talat Masood Qazi, Nuzhat Gohar and Kashif Masood Qazi”.

“It was further decided that the foreign currency accounts in the name of first two persons will be operated by me (Dar) , and the other two Benami accounts by Naeem Mehmood, a director of my company, but under my supervision,”.

He had also revealed that besides these four accounts, “the previously opened foreign currency accounts of Saeed Ahmed, one of the former directors of FHMC and a close friend of mine, and of Mussa Ghani, the nephew of my wife, were also used to deposit huge foreign currency funds provided by the Sharif family to offer them as collateral to obtain different and indirect credit lines.”

He also mentioned that several other accounts were also opened/operated by him and Naeem Mehmood in the same manner.

Citing a meeting called by Shahbaz Sharif in early 1998, he said that the Sharif family decided to liquidate/ get cashed all these foreign currency accounts after the press began publishing stories about the “Qazi scandal”.

Following the presentation of details about transactions and other financial matters, Dar said: “They (Sharifs) made all this arrangement as they could not have explainable sources of these funds which ultimately landed in one of their companies.”

However, Defence Minister Khawaja Asif has now come up with details of what, according to him, were the circumstances in which Ishaq Dar was made to give such a statement, which otherwise puts the entire blame of money laundering on the Sharif family.

Published in Dawn, February 3rd, 2017