Adviser to Prime Minister on Accountability Shahzad Akbar has rejected reports of ‘acquittal’ of PML-N President Shehbaz Sharif and his son Suleiman in a money laundering case from a London court.
Shahzad took to Twitter and said the news of the reported acquittal of Shehbaz Sharif and his son Suleiman are incorrect and misreporting.
“The investigation by the NCA against Suleiman Shahbaz and some of his family members was not initiated at the request of [Asset Recovery Unit] ARU or NAB,” he said, adding that it was a result of a suspicious transaction reported by a bank to NCA.
He said that certain funds transferred by Suleiman from Pakistan to the UK in 2019 were declared as a suspicious transaction by the authorities and the NCA secured an asset freezing order (AFO) from the court against these funds
However, he said that recently NCA decided to stop investigating these funds and therefore agreed to release these funds through court.
Shahzad said that such a release order is not an acknowledgment that funds are from a legitimate source.
“There is no acquittal of any sort as reported as there was no trial! funds were frozen by NCA and NCA has decided to not investigate these funds anymore,” he said adding that Suleiman remains a fugitive in a money laundering case against him and his father before the accountability court in Lahore.
THE PROCEEDINGS: The PML-N claimed that a British court ordered to unfreeze the bank accounts of Shehbaz Sharif and his son, Suleman Sharif on Monday.
According to Geo News, the decision was taken by the court after the UK’s top anti-corruption body, the National Crime Agency (NCA) concluded there was no evidence of money laundering, fraud and criminal conduct against the two.
The Westminster Magistrates Court’s Judge Nicholas Rimmer set aside the two accounts freezing orders (AFO) against Shehbaz Sharif and his son related to a December 2019 case filed by the NCA at the Pakistan government’s request.
The UK’s top anti-corruption agency filed a unilateral application before Judge Rimmer to declare that its two-year high-profile investigation in the jurisdictions of Pakistan, UK and Dubai found no evidence of money laundering and criminal conduct on part of the two Sharifs who were investigated.
