ISLAMABAD: The Joint Investigation Team (JIT) probing the Panama Papers case sought transcripts of speeches delivered by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his children — Maryam, Hassan and Hussain Nawaz.

Sources in the JIT said that the speeches of the PM and his children at different points of time with regard to the Panama Papers leaks would be examined to ascertain any inconsistency.

Read: Panama JIT unlikely to meet 60-day deadline

In case there was any discrepancy, the six-member JIT would ask the PM and his children about it through proposed questionnaires which would be dispatched to them in the coming days, the sources further said.

The JIT has asked the ministry of information and broadcasting to provide the transcripts of the speeches of the PM and his children at the earliest through the Press Information Department, Pakistan Television and the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority.

A three-member bench of the Supreme Court constituted the JIT to implement the Panama Papers case verdict of May 5, 2017, directing that “all the executive authorities throughout Pakistan shall act in aid to the JIT”.

The petitioners in the case, including the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf and Jamat-i-Islami, had pointed out before the apex court that the soon after Panama Papers leaks the PM’s stance in the National Assembly was different from what he stated in the Panama Papers case with regard to London properties.

However, the PM’s counsel Makhdoom Ali Khan said Mr Sharif had shared the details about family businesses and financial resources used to purchase London flats. Justifying the difference between the PM’s speech and the reply filed before the Supreme Court, the counsel said that the prime minister might have inadvertently omitted something, but he was not making a sworn, itemised submission in a court of law.

On Dec 9 last year, Salman Aslam Butt, another counsel for Mr Sharif, claimed that the PM’s statement made on the floor of the National Assembly about the money trail of his family’s wealth and businesses was a ‘political’ statement.

Published in Dawn, May 17th, 2017