THE main opposition party and its sup-porters maintain that their leader, who has recently been convicted for corruption in the £190 million Al-Qadir Trust corruption case, never did anything wrong. Let us ask them a slightly different question.

In the aftermath of the Panama Papers revelations, it was reported back in 2018 by the British newspaper Daily Mail that the value of Sharif family’s properties in England was about £32 million.

The jailed opposition leader had a hardline stance against the entire oppo-sition at the time, which included the statement that “I will not give them NRO” as well as his demand after being ousted through a vote of no-confidence that in a struggle between good (by which he meant himself) and evil (by which he meant every other politician), the military should not be neutral and favour him.

Eventually, with the context thus set, the simple question for the incarcerated leader convicted for corruption himself and his followers is this: between £32 million and £190 million, which figure indicates higher level of corruption?

Aqil Sajjad
Maryland, USA

Published in Dawn, February 6th, 2025