Broadsheet owner says was offered bribe to drop probe against Sharifs

LONDON: Broadsheet CEO Kaveh Mousavi has said that he was offered a $25 million bribe to drop an asset probe against the Sharif family.

In an exclusive interview to ARY News, he revealed that a person who introduced himself as former premier Nawaz Sharif’s nephew offered the bribe to drop the probe.

“Anjum Dar had several photographs of himself sitting with Nawaz Sharif. He said he was his [Nawaz’s] nephew. I have witnesses who were sitting with me in that meeting,” Mousavi said.

UK-based asset recovery firm Broadsheet LLC was hired in 2000 by General Pervez Musharraf’s government to help recover assets stashed by past Pakistani rulers abroad.

“He offered us $25 million to go away,” the firm owner said. “I was a bit confused…Because Sharifs were not in power and it was Zardari’s government. The massage was they didn’t want this thing to go any further. They didn’t want any further investigation.”

He said he refused to take the bribe.

When asked if his firm found anything about Sharif and Zardari, he replied that he pointed out Zardari’s estate in Surrey, which, to “lasting shame of the Government of Pakistan was restored to Mr Zardari.”

“Whole my efforts to grab it and sell it on behalf of the Government of Pakistan were sabotaged,” he said.