ISLAMABAD: Justice Qazi Faez Isa, who is facing a presidential reference for failing to declare his family’s assets abroad, on Tuesday dropped a bombshell as he claimed to have “discovered through search” multiple properties in the United Kingdom linked with or possessed by top political leaders including Prime Minister Imran Khan and his close aides.
Justice Isa, in an application submitted to the Supreme Court, told the bench that he took a cue from the Asset Recovery Unit (ARU) chief Shahzad Akbar’s claim that properties in Britain could be searched by anyone by using the search engine 192.com.
The application said the search engine was used to find out the properties of a few known public figures. The search result suggested that Akbar owned five properties in Britain, Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) leader Firdous Ashiq Awan owned one, State Minister for Overseas Pakistanis Zulfi Bukhari seven, Special Assistant to Prime Minister on Youth Affairs Usman Dar three, Prime Minister Imran six, Jahangir Khan Tareen one and former president Pervez Musharraf owned two properties.
However, an investigation by Pakistan Today found that most of the aforementioned properties were possessed not by the accused but by their namesakes. For example, six assets attributed to the prime minister were in fact in possession of one Imran Ali Khan Niazi who, according to the shown record, is in the 35-39 age group while the premier is 67 years old.
A screengrab of the website.
Similarly, out of two properties linked with former president Musharraf, only one revealed the name of his spouse Sehba Musharraf as the occupant. It merits a mention here that, in 2017, the former president had himself admitted to receiving financial assistance from Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz back in 2009 to purchase two properties, one in London and Dubai each.
