Sharif grilled in Panama graft case

Islamabad, June 16
Embattled Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif today said he and his family have done nothing wrong and lashed out at “some unseen elements” for plotting against his democratically-elected government, as he became Pakistan’s first sitting premier to be grilled by a graft probe panel.
“Today, I have just presented my stance before the JIT,” Sharif told reporters after nearly three hours of questioning by the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) probing his family’s alleged corruption as was reported by the Panama Papers leaks.
On April 20, the Supreme Court had constituted the JIT and empowered it to summon the PM, his sons and any other person necessary, to investigate allegations of money-laundering, through which the four apartments in London’s posh Park Lane area were purchased.
The 67-year-old PML-N leader said these allegations have nothing to do with his tenure as the PM and are not charges of corruption.
“It should be noted that these allegations have nothing to do with my tenure as the prime minister and are not charges of corruption. They are charges against me and my family on a personal level about the family business,” Sharif said. “I have put myself and my family up for trial and provided the details of financial transactions made even before my own birth,” the PM said.
He said as former chief minister and now third time prime minister, he approved projects worth trillion of rupees but “my opponents could not accuse me of any wrongdoing.” Sharif said he and his family have repeatedly been subjected to merciless accountability but no allegation of corruption had ever been proved.
“We have underwent accountability in every regime and during PPP regime in 1972 when I just had passed out from the college. Musharraf’s dictatorship also grilled us threadbare but could not find anything and only found a fake plane hijacking case to be registered against us,” Sharif said.
“My opponents have levied charges of corruption against me, however, neither in the past, nor in the present, have any charges of corruption been proved against me and my family.” He expressed confidence that the outcome of the ongoing inquiry would not be different as he and his family have done nothing wrong.
He accused “some unseen elements of hatching conspiracies against him and the democracy which would damage” the country. “All conspiracies of our political opponents will fail,” he said.