Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf Chairman Imran Khan, while addressing a press conference following the submission of joint investigation team’s (JIT) report in the Supreme Court, claimed that Sharif family has been looting the country for the past 30 years but now their time was over.

Imran said Nawaz Sharif should have resigned on moral grounds the day two judges of the SC had ruled that “he was no more fit to hold public office”.

“All of our apprehensions have been proven correct,” the PTI chief said, adding that the negative role of institutions including Intelligence Bureau (IB) and Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) has been exposed in the report. Accusing the Sharif family of making institutions obstruct justice, Khan said that the Sharifs did everything they could to stop the state institutions from performing their duties. “Instead of sending a reference against him [Nawaz], speaker [Ayaz Sadiq] forwarded the reference against me,” the PTI chief said while demanding resignation of National Assembly Speaker Ayaz Sadiq along with Nawaz and Shahbaz Sharif.

“They have been asking what their crime is let me tell you today: money laundering is your biggest crime,” Khan said, explaining that laundering money was a bigger crime than corruption since the consequences of former on the country’s economy are much greater than that of the latter. Taking a jibe at the Nawaz Sharif’s daughter, Khan said that Maryam Nawaz was the only person in the Panama leaks who claimed that her family’s name had been included by mistake. “No one else denied that they had an offshore company other than Maryam Nawaz.” “But now the [JIT] report has proven Maryam Nawaz is the owner of the Mayfair flats,” Khan said, adding that this meant her father had laundered the money in her name. They have used ministers, institutions and all other government resources to protect themselves, he said.

The PTI chief also thanked lawyers for the lawyers’ movement which became a basis for independent judiciary today. “It has emerged that Nawaz Sharif is chairman of an offshore company in Dubai,” Khan said. “Shahbaz Sharif was the chairman of Hudaibiya Paper Mills and will not be able to escape,” Khan added.

Published in Daily Times, July 11^th , 2017.