ISLAMABAD: The appointment of retired justice Azmat Saeed as the head of the inquiry commission on the Broadsheet scandal has become controversial as the opposition has rejected the selection while the government has defended the move.
The opposition has rejected the appointment on the grounds that Justice Saeed was part of the five-member bench of the Supreme Court which announced the verdict against former prime minister Nawaz Sharif in the Panama Papers case.
On the other hand, federal Interior Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed and Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Ali Muhammad Khan have said that the government had no “bad” intention in retired Justice Saeed’s appointment.
Broadsheet LLC owner Kaveh Moussavi. Screenshot courtesy YouTube
ISLAMABAD: The Broadsheet award made public on Monday is a sweeping indictment of Pakistan’s legal and prosecutorial performance in the last two decades and lays bare the rank incompetence and political perfidy displayed by officials of the National Accountability Bureau and successive governments.
The award is now being used to turbo charge partisan narratives regardless of the exact findings contained in the document. At the heart of the new offensive from the PTI government is their argument that the Broadsheet award has exposed the extent of the Sharif family corruption by identifying vast properties spread across many countries and totalling a whopping 820 million dollars. In a press conference on Tuesday evening, cabinet ministers Shibli Faraz, Fawad Chaudhry and Dr Shireen Mazari tore into the Sharifs saying the award by the UK arbitrator Sir Anthony Evans had independent of any Pakistani government or c
The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on Tuesday asked Auditor General of Pakistan (AGP) Javed Jahangir to probe the Broadsheet affair. Photo courtesy AG website/File
ISLAMABAD: The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on Tuesday asked Auditor General of Pakistan (AGP) Javed Jahangir to probe the Broadsheet affair and submit a report within 10 days.
PAC chairman Rana Tanveer Hussain said that the amount paid to the foreign company may be recovered from the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) if the report held the bureau responsible.
Recently, the Pakistan government paid $28 million to Broadsheet company after the latter secured the verdict from the UK’s High Court.
Imran Khan to visit Sri Lanka
Updated:
Updated:
‘The visit is likely towards the end of February’
Share Article
‘The visit is likely towards the end of February’
Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan is scheduled to visit Sri Lanka in February, according to official sources. He will be the first head of government to visit Sri Lanka since the pandemic struck last year.
“The visit is likely towards the end of February,” an official source in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs told
The Hindu on Monday.
UN resolution
Mr. Khan’s visit, scheduled a month after Indian External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar’s three-day visit to Colombo, will likely coincide with the early days of the 46th UN Human Rights Council session in Geneva, where a new resolution on Sri Lanka may be adopted by members. Pakistan is currently a member of the Council. In December 2020, Islamabad and Colombo held Foreign Secretary level ‘Bilateral Political Consultations’ virtually. A state
Malaysia impounds PIA plane
January 16, 2021
ISLAMABAD: Malaysian authorities Friday seized a Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) Boeing-777 airplane at the Kuala Lumpur Airport.
The PIA plane was seized on the orders of a local Malaysian court over the non-payment of aircraft lease dues, Geo News reported while quoting sources.
The PIA had leased two aircraft, including the Boeing-777, from a Vietnamese company in 2015. The plane was seized after passengers had already boarded the aircraft.
Meanwhile, the national flag carrier said that the PIA aircraft has been held back on the orders of a local court in Malaysia which, it argued, has taken a one-sided decision pertaining to a legal dispute between the PIA and another party pending in a UK court.