TOWARDS the end of 2019, something unusual happened at a federal cabinet meeting in Islamabad. Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Accountability Shahzad Akbar was allowed to present a ‘non-agenda item’; he had with him a sealed envelope that he said contained a non-disclosure agreement. It pertained to a multi-million pound settlement that the UK-based National Crime Agency (NCA) had recently arrived at with property tycoon Malik Riaz. According to a source present at the meeting, “[Human Rights Minister] Shireen Mazari objected, saying, ‘What approval are we giving when we don’t even know its contents?’ We were told that if it is opened there are implications for national security and the UK government also has reservations”.
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