Daily Times

Pakistan People’s Party co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari’scelebratory news conference in Islamabad after his acquittal in the last NAB case has raised more questions than he was able to answer.

It has even forced senior NAB executives to come before the media to explain their position.

Gleefully, with his impish smile, the former president appeared comfortable enough in the news conference to joke, retort, taunt and bask in the glory of a lower court victory, howsoever controversial and unconvincing it may have been.

Why the victory wasn’t convincing was clearly stated by senior NAB officials at that rare occasion when they addressed the media after Zardari’s press conference.

The Chief Prosecutor, with Deputy Chairman ImtiazTajwar standing besides him, told the media that the bureau possessed lists of Zardari’s alleged foreign assets and propertiesbut the court did not admit it as evidence because who had gathered itwere personally not available to authenticate it. One official has died and the other has settled abroad.

And the list of alleged assets inside Pakistan provided to the court had mysteriously gone missing from the records during the 16 years the case remainedunder trial. These were the technical reasons why Zardari was acquitted.

What these statements meantwas that there is considerable evidence of Zardari’s alleged wealth but technically it had become difficult to use it in the court of law.

This conclusion does not absolve Zardariof all the charges of corruption brought against him.

What should then be done is a big question.NAB officials say they have the lists of Zardari’s alleged assets abroad,compiled lawfully and through a proper process by two officials of the bureau. The only issue is that the officials concerned are not available. Thus, can the matter be left alone without any further effort? Obviously not.

One solution can be that the case gets assigned to some other officials who could be sent with the evidence available to re-confirm the data and then bring it back to be presented at a proper legal forum.

How can this be done? Anyone can move the higher courts on the basis that NAB had found tons of evidence and only a technical hitch was stopping it from taking the case to its logical end. The court can then authorise NAB or form a JIT to re-confirm the evidence and proceed.

This needs to be done not just because an impression of across-the-board accountability has to be established but also because the data already available to the bureau is of humongous proportion.

Domestically, the disputed properties include acres of agricultural land in Nawabshah, Hyderabad and in the vicinity of the Simli Dam and real estate in Karachi including plots at prime locations in DHA.

Then, there are 17 off-shore companies in British Virgin Islands, five in Florida and various properties in London, including the Surrey estate included in the NRO. Disputed assets in the US are at prime locations in Texas and Florida.

NAB officials say they have lists of Zardari’s alleged assets, compiled lawfully and through a proper process by two officials of the bureau. The only issue is that the officials concerned are not available. Can the matter be left alone without any further effort?

There are also some 27 bank accounts in London, Paris, and Switzerland.

The list goes on and on with six alleged sugar mills in Pakistan and companies left by Benazir Bhutto in London in which Rehman Malik was also a partner.

With such a multi-billion treasure still to be explored by the accountability court, it came across as a bit amusing when Zardaritold an interviewer on TV that he thought Nawaz Sharif had a $10 billion assets portfolio.

With Nawaz Sharif sent home by the SC for holding an iqama in Dubai and corruption cases against him referred to the NAB, the real question now is what will the bureau do in Zardari’s cases.

The bureau has two options: it can either treat Sharif’s cases like it hasdealt so far with Zardari’s and,to quote Justice Faez Isa on that performance of the NAB,“the Bureau had tarnished its reputation and had not put its heart and soul in it”.

The other option is to pursue Sharif’s cases rigorously and also go after Zardari’s to achieve a much-needed balance. Ultimately the case will have to go to the Supreme Court if all these alleged riches and treasures are to be discovered and possibly retrieved.

A JIT would be absolutely needed in Zardari’s cases as well but before that his iqama would also have to be examined.

If Sharif’s disqualification stands and Zardari’s casesare not pursued, the former will emerge as a genuine political victim and that would be disastrous for the democratic system.

The writer is a senior journalist. Twitter: @Ssehbai1

Published in Daily Times, September 1^st 2017.