Panama JIT has deviated from its objective: Asif Kirmani

ISLAMABAD: Adviser to the Prime Minister on Political Affairs Dr. Asif Kirmani on Monday lashed out at the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) probing the Sharif family’s foreign assets, saying, it has deviated from its objective.

Speaking to reporters outside the JIT secretariat here in Islamabad, Kirmani said the Sharif family will be meted out injustice if the JIT did not travel to Doha to record the statement of Qatari royal in connection with the family’s London properties. The probe into the Panama Papers will be deemed incomplete without Qatari royal’s statement, he added.

Accusing the JIT of acting in a partisan manner, he said that it has failed to achieve the objective the Supreme Court had appointed it for. “JIT is working beyond its mandate. It has taken a U-turn,” he claimed while begging for justice for the first family.

Kirmani also said that the apex court didn’t take into consideration their (Sharif family’s) reservation. “Yet we respect the judiciary,” he added.

He told the reporters that the Panama JIT had hired a legal firm in London to secure the documents about the first family’s flats in London despite the fact that they had already been submitted in the apex court.

Referring to the JIT’s questioning about Hudaibiya Paper Mills, he said the matter with regard to the paper mills had already been closed, yet it was flogging a dead horse. He said Sharifs were subjected to ruthless accountability during former president Gen Pervez Musharaf’s rule.