Capt Safdar appears before Panamagate JIT; FIA forms team to investigate SECP
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's son-in-law Captain Safdar reached the Federal Judicial Academy on Saturday to present himself before the joint investigation team (JIT) probing the Panama Papers case.
PML-N leader Anjum Iqbal met the prime minister's son outside the JIT's secretariat, while a number of PML-N supporters gathered outside the academy in Captain Safdar's support.
In a related development, the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) notified the names of three officers who will look into the JIT's allegation that the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) had tampered its records.
FIA officers Ayaz Mehmood, Tahir Tanveer and Farooq Latif will look into the allegations made by the JIT in an application to the SC, headed by Maqsoodul Hassan, the director of the FIA's Anti Corruption Wing.
Earlier, in an application to the SC the JIT, among other allegations, had alleged that SECP Chairman Zafarul Haq Hijazi "was instrumental in closing the investigation of a money laundering case launched against Chaudhry Sugar Mills Limited", which is owned by the Sharif family, in 2016.
"This act of backdated closure of investigation ... is a criminal act, with a view to facilitate the respondents [the Sharif family] against whom the present investigation in being conducted," it had said.
It alleged that the SECP chairman's orders to tamper the record and close investigation against Chaudhry Sugar Mills Limited were executed by SECP Executive Director Ali Azeem Ikram, who was incidentally nominated initially by the chairman to be a member of the present JIT "with a clear intent to subvert the investigation of the JIT".
The application had further accused the SECP of restricting its own officers from inquiring about the requests handed to them by the JIT.
The JIT said it had asked the SECP to provide any documents pertaining to investigations carried out regarding Chaudhry Sugar Mills or any other company related to the Sharif family.
However, an SECP officer — whose name was withheld for security reasons — claimed that the SECP chairman did not allow him to check from all concerned departments of the SECP and confirm whether there were other inquiries against companies owned by the Sharif family.
