ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s son, Hussain Nawaz, is expected to appear before the Panama case Joint Investigation Team (JIT) today.
This will be the premier’s elder son’s fifth appearance before the high profile probe team in less than two weeks.
On Thursday, Hussain’s younger brother, Hassan, made his second appearance before the JIT; which questioned him for around five hours.
Accompanying Hassan, the premier’s special secretary Asif Kirmani lashed out at the ‘character assassination’ of the prime minister’s family while talking to the media.
The JIT is probing the international financial dealings of the Sharif family in light of the April 20 Supreme Court judgment in the Panama case.
On Wednesday, the Supreme Court special bench overseeing the JIT’s probe had expressed satisfaction with the progress of the investigation after the JIT submitted its mid-term report.
The JIT, formed on May 6, has 60 days to complete its probe and submit its final report to the Supreme Court.
The high-profile probe has been marred by several controversies recently.
A news report published in The News revealed that a person claiming to be the Supreme Court registrar had surreptitiously contacted the Security and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) and asked for specific persons to be included in the list of potential JIT members. The prime minister’s son, Hussain, had raised questions of bias against one of the SECP officials who made it to the probe team. However, those objections were not entertained by the court.
Moreover, a picture of Hussain during his first visit to the JIT on May 28 was leaked to the media recently, raising questions on the credibility of the JIT’s work. In the picture, Hussain can be seen inside a room with no other pieces of furniture except for the chair he is sitting on and a table beside it. Opposition parties claimed the government itself leaked the picture to gain sympathy, however the Interior Ministry denied those claims.
The most recent controversy surrounding the JIT stemmed from former Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz leader Nehal Hashmi’s recent threats against the ‘those investigating the prime minister’s family’.
Senator Hashmi, who was the PML-N’s Sindh general secretary when he made the comments late May, is facing contempt charges in the Supreme Court for ‘threatening the families of judges’ after the court took a suo motu notice of his remarks.
The six-member JIT comprises its head, Federal Investigation Agency Additional Director Wajid Zia, Amer Aziz of the State Bank of Pakistan, SECP’s Executive Director Communication Bilal Rasool, Irfan Naeem Mangi of National Accountability Bureau, Brigadier Nauman Saeed of the Inter-Services Intelligence and Brigadier Kamran Khurshid from the Military Intelligence.
The Federal Judicial Academy in Islamabad has been declared as the secretariat of the JIT.
