LAHORE: The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz has threatened to sue Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf chief Imran Khan for defamation if he does not disclose within three days the name of “Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif’s friend” who had allegedly offered him Rs10 billion as a bribe to keep mum on the Panama Papers issue.

“If Imran Khan does not divulge the name of the ‘deal-broker’ within three days, he will be sent a legal notice (under the defamation law),” Malik Muhammad Ahmed Khan, spokesperson for the Punjab government, told a press conference on Friday.

Terming the PTI chief’s claim a barefaced lie, the spokesperson said that if what Mr Khan had said was true, he would have no issues disclosing the name of the person who had offered him a bribe on behalf of the Sharif family.

The Punjab government spokesperson urged the Supreme Court to take suo motu notice of the PTI leader’s statement and ask why the PTI chief had not brought it up before the apex court hearing the Panama Papers case.

Responding to a question, the spokesperson said that the PML-N would cooperate with the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) probing the Panama Papers scandal.

Answering a question about the dissenting note in the court’s verdict, Mr Khan argued that if it was as important as the opposition was making it out to be, former prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto would not have been hanged as a consequence of the split verdict in the Kasuri murder case.

He said if Articles 62 and 63 of the Constitution were implemented in letter and spirit, then no one from Larkana — a reference to the Pakistan Peoples Party’s leaders — to Banigala would be left eligible to contest elections.

He criticised PPP leader Asif Ali Zardari’s speech in Mardan, and said it was biased. He alleged that during its tenure, the PPP had relied on rental power cases, and had not added any electricity to the national grid.

Published in Dawn, April 29th, 2017