ISLAMABAD: The Joint Investigation Team (JIT) on Saturday questioned the prime minister’s son-in-law for around five hours in connection with the ongoing probe into alleged money laundering by the Sharif family.

Retired Captain Mohammad Safdar, who is a member of the National Assembly from Mansehra, is the sixth member of the Sharif family questioned by the JIT since May 5.

But in his brief remarks to the media following his appearance before the JIT, he criticised opposition parties for conspiring against Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

Capt Safdar accuses Imran of conspiring against PM at behest of ‘Jewish lobby’

He began his media talk with the Urdu proverb: “Sari raat qissa suntay rahay subha pochhtay hain Zulekha larki thi ya larka” (They listened to the tale all night, but couldn’t remember the next morning whether Zulekha was a boy or a girl).

His tone and choice of words suggested that he could not convince the six-member investigation team in the five-hour-long session. He even claimed that JIT members were getting questions from “outside”, without explaining further.

Capt Safdar took a clicker tasbih along with him when he appeared before the JIT. The device was visible in his hand when he spoke to the media after emerging from the Federal Judicial Academy.

Paying tribute to the prime minister, he claimed that the Panama Papers case was against a great leader who empowered Pakistan with the atomic bomb.

“This case is against Nawaz Sharif, who is struggling to connect the country with China and the central Asian republics, eradicating poverty, unemployment and loadshedding from Pakistan,” he said, terming the investigation a “conspiracy” against the two-nation theory.

He also alleged that Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) chairman Imran Khan had hatched this conspiracy at the behest of the Jewish and Indian lobby.

Talking about his interrogation, Capt Safdar — who is a retired army officer and a former bureaucrat — told reporters that the investigators were quite civil to him. He claimed that they were his juniors in service, adding that he recollected some of them.

He said he had told the JIT that despite being the PM’s son-in-law, he only owned a 10-marla house that he inherited.

Without naming former presidents Asif Ali Zardari and retired Gen Pervez Musharraf, he lamented that nobody was asking how the Surrey Palace was purchased, and who was responsible for the Kargil debacle.

“But Nawaz Sharif, who has served the country, is being victimised,” he said.

He claimed that he had also been victimised following the removal the Nawaz Sharif government. “I was suspended after Ghulam Ishaq Khan dissolved the assemblies, and I was sent home again after the October 1999 coup,” he further said.

Sources said the JIT questioned Capt Safdar about his tax returns and wealth statement.

According to assets details obtained by the JIT from the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), Capt Safdar owns a 500-square yard plot in Islamabad’s Sector E-12/4 worth Rs250,000 which was allotted to him in 1990, a one-kanal plot in Mansehra with Rs780,000, 160 kanals of agricultural land in Mansehra 15 acres of barren land in Rajanpur.

In movable assets, he has shown remittances worth Rs2 million, which he procured through the sale of a Rs6 million BMW vehicle, gifted to him by spouse Maryam Nawaz Saudi Arabia, and just over half a kg of gold and Rs4 million cash in the bank.

Sources said the JIT also asked him about his sources of income and the dependency of his spouse. The PM’s son-in-law apprised the JIT that he received a pension from the army, a salary from the National Assembly and some income from his agricultural land.

Following his appearance before the JIT,Captain Safdar on Saturday night flew to Abu Dhabi from Islamabad. Sources said the PM’s son-in-law had flown to Pakistan from Saudi Arabia on Thursday to appear before the JIT.

Published in Dawn, June 25th, 2017