ISLAMABAD, Aug 12 Police have identified a certain Mr Joseph as the central figure in the bootleggers' business in the federal capital.

Police sources told Dawn on Thursday that investigations into last June's big haul of illegal liquor in the city revealed him to be the man who procured permits from diplomatic community for tax free import of liquor for a bootlegger.

They said Mr Joseph used to strike acquaintances with diplomats at clubs located in the Diplomatic Enclave where he lives. The acquaintance flowered into friendship at the lavish parties that his business contact threw and ended in securing the diplomat's legal liquor import permit.

That permit, according to the sources, opened the door for his business contact Malik Tariq, to inflate the quantity to be imported and sell the excess liquor in the black market.

Some diplomats would surrender their permit on the promise of a share in the profits the bootlegger made or some other favour, the sources said.

In spite of having all this incriminating information, police have not dared to lay its hands on Mr Joseph because “he is well- connected”.

Allegedly, Mr Joseph was the person who paid the rent of the house in F-10/1, occupied by a Filipino attache, where police found more than 26,000 bottles of liquor and beer cans - and a stack of liquor import permits of embassies on June 30.

A third secretary of the Afghan embassy present at the house at the time of the police raid had claimed the ownership of the consignment for his embassy.

Advocate Abdul Wahid Qureshi petitioned the district and sessions court in Islamabad to release the consignment to the Afghan embassy but the court rejected the plea.

It transpired later that the lawyer had not been engaged by the embassy but a woman named Bushra. She had handed him the power of attorney at the residence of Mr Joseph but in his absence.

Bushra had liaised with the Afghan Consulate in Peshawar in the past and played host at the parties thrown for Mr Joseph's diplomat friends, the sources claimed. She allegedly earned the displeasure of the Afghan embassy for moving the local court and the Lahore High Court for the release of the seized liquor and withdrawal of the case police registered in this connection.

According to the sources the embassy was furious that the lawyer engaged by her claimed the entire consignment of liquor for the embassy.

Meanwhile, the Embassy of Bulgaria has objected to its mention in this newspaper's article “Liquor trade is like truth - rarely pure and never simple”. “Neither the embassy nor its staff has anything to do with the cargo that was seized by the police from the house. We do not own nor we ordered the consignment that was mentioned in the new article,” the embassy said in a communication to Dawn.

It said “the allegation against us are not only untrue but malicious”.

But the allegations that offended the embassy were never made in the article. All the article said was that one of the liquor permits found by the raiding police was issued by the Bulgarian embassy.