Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) conducted a raid on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and arrested Director Shafqat Cheema for his alleged involvement in corruption, human smuggling and theft of machine-readable passports.

The NAB said in a statement issued after Cheema’s arrest that the accused accumulated assets beyond his known sources of income. It said that an investigation into the corrupt practices of Cheema had been initiated on the basis of “solid evidence”.

The NAB has seized more than Rs 50 million from Cheema’s bank accounts and started an investigation into the charges against him under the criminal law, source told Daily Times. The NAB has also formally registered a criminal case against him.

On the direction of Foreign Secretary Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhry, the NAB launched an investigation into the charges against Cheema who served as first sectary at the Pakistan Embassy in Madrid, Spain. Cheema was working on the Bhutan, Nepal and Sri Lanka desk when the NAB conducted the raid in consultation with the foreign secretary and arrested him on the premises of his office.

Well-informed sources told this scribe that investigation into the charges against Cheema, a grade-18 officer, had been under way for the last many years. The foreign secretary had denied Cheema promotion to the next grade due to his illegal practices.

A senior investigation officer at NAB said the Foreign Office had become a hub of corruption and senior officials were embezzling money in the name of national security.

The first probe into the charges against Cheema was started during the regime of President Pervez Musharraf when more than 5,000 machine-readable passports were stolen from the Pakistan Mission in Madrid. Cheema was the head of the mission at that time.

In this scam, the Interior Ministry held Cheema responsible for the stolen passports and later an investigation report showed that Cheema sold those passports for 2,500 euros each.

Daily Times made repeated calls to Foreign Office spokesman Muhammad Zakria for his comment on Cheema’s arrest, but he did not respond. Zakria told the media at a weekly briefing a few days ago that those talking about corruption at the Foreign Office were playing in the hands of the enemies of Pakistan.