More than 25 years ago, according to a confessional statement signed by Ishaq Dar, he helped the Sharif family launder large sums of money using benami accounts. In his defense in numerous public appearances since then, he does not dispute the contents of the confessional statement, only its “evidentiary value” in a court of law.

Since the revelations in the Panama Papers, money laundering has become political issue number one in the country, holding the destiny of an elected Prime Minister in the balance. The PTI, which has brought the case, argues that money laundering has drained the economy of its vitality and thwarted its growth potential, and in order to stop the enterprise it is necessary to hold those who have engaged in the practice accountable under the law, and that this accountability must begin at the top.

Their claim is that the Sharif family’s flats in London, revealed in the Panama Papers, were purchased with funds sent secretly from Pakistan. A natural corollary of their argument is that the funds were generated through corrupt practices and secretly siphoned out of the country to buy luxury flats in a prime location in London.

The Prime Minister and his family have been caught up in allegations of money-laundering themselves

The Prime Minister and his family have provided conflicting accounts of where the funds originated, but their central claim is that the funds originated abroad and were not sent from Pakistan. Besides shining a spotlight on corrupt practices in Pakistan, the case has highlighted the salience of illicit channels through which funds can be transferred into and out of the country without alerting authorities.

Such channels are used by criminals, terrorists as well as by far more ordinary tax evaders and those engaged in the mis-declaration of trade. The framework of protections given to money moving into and out of the country was erected during the first Nawaz Sharif government in the name of providing protection to foreign investors and non-resident Pakistanis to encourage them to keep their dollar savings in Pakistan.

Ironically, that framework was first tested in a court of law in a 1999 case involving the Sharif family themselves titled Hamza Shahbaz Sharif vs Federation of Pakistan. Since then it has been used as a precedent to acquit others who have been caught using banking channels to transfer funds for which no known sources of income can be given.

But in 2016, in a sign of the changing times, the Sindh High Court refused to allow that case to be invoked as precedent in a judgement Misbah Karim and others vs Federation of Pakistan. “The law must move with the times,” the court said, arguing that money laundering can be perceived as a crime against the state and society. There was no specific law against money laundering in Pakistan back in 1999, the court said, whereas “[t]oday such an offence does exist and the offence itself if not only a very menacing one but also a transnational crime”. — K.H.

Published in Dawn, EOS, March 26th, 2017