Fawad explains why govt ordered fresh probe into Hudaibiya case

ISLAMABAD: Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry said on Tuesday the Hudaibiya Paper Mills case is the story of fraud involving Rs1,242 million, which is bigger amount than that of the Panama Papers case.

In a series of tweets, he said the case was instituted in 2000 when NAB officials filed a reference against the Hudaibiya Papers Mills Private Limited. Ex-PM Nawaz Sharif’s sons Hassan and Hussain Nawaz, younger brother Shehbaz Sharif and his political heir Hamza Shehbaz are the main characters of this case, he explained.

He said that former finance minister Ishaq Dar opened fake foreign currency accounts to help Sharif family siphon off public funds. Dar became an approver in the case and he also recorded a detailed statement with the authorities concerned, he added. But later, he retracted his statement saying it was extracted under duress.

Chaudhry said scrutiny of the record of Hudaibiya Papers Mills revealed that during 1996-97 and 1997-98, a sum of 30.499 million and 612.273 million rupees was shown as share deposit money. This huge influx of money in a company whose share capital was only Rs95.7 million and which was incurring losses to the tune of 809.834 million, raised serious doubt amongst the investigators, he added.

As a result, the NAB ordered investigation into the matter under NAB ordinance 1999.

Fawad Chaudhry said that during the investigation, it came to the fore that the management of the mills, comprising Muhammad Sharif, Shamim Akhtar, Nawaz Sharif, Shahbaz Sharif, Abbas Sharif, Maryam Safdar, Sabiha Abbas, Hussain Nawaz and Hamza Shahbaz, was in possession of huge illegal proceeds. It held that the accused failed to explain source of the acquisition of the funds.

He said that under the cover of the provisions of the Protection of Economic Reform Act 1992, these people frequently opened different fictitious foreign currency accounts and deposited huge amounts in these accounts.

The minister said the decision of a fresh investigation has been taken as some new facts in the case has come to the fore.