Panamagate JIT's volume 10 has nothing significant, says Salman Akram Raja

ISLAMABAD: Sharif family’s counsel in Panamagate case, Salman Akram Raja on Saturday said that volume 10 of the JIT report only consists of requests of legal assistance and has nothing which can effect the overall case, ARY News reported.

Talking exclusively to ARY News, the lawyer maintained that one of his team member Khawaja Haris had requested the court to make the volume 10 public but as the court showed him some part he was satisfied.

“It only has requests of mutual legal assistance (to different countries) whose response is awaited. Even the court said that it has nothing significant and I think the stories and theories about volume 10 will die,” said Raja.

As the host reminded him that it was the government which demanded that the volume 10 of the report be made public, he maintained that they (the legal team and client) just wanted to see that what type of questions were sent to different countries or were the questions relevant and he still has some reservations over the way information was sought.

“We have given one example, they (the UAE authorities) were asked if some machinery went through Dubai to Saudi Arabia. How can machinery go through Dubai, the big land route from UAE to Saudi Arabia is through Abu Dhabi,” said Raja.

‘THIS IS A DIFFERENT BENCH’

Answering the most pertinent question about the Supreme Court Bench which is hearing the Panamagate implementation case, Raja said that the three member bench currently hearing the case is a different bench than the one which announced the verdict to form a JIT on April 20.

“The April 20 verdict was the final decision on the first phase of the Panamagate verdict and all the five judges signed the order of the court for the implementation. That five member bench was dissolved,” said the lawyer.

He added that the current bench is not the continuation of the first bench and is also not a sub-bench. The orders of those bench and this bench cannot be mixed, this bench will issue the final verdict either with 2-1 or 3-0 majority.

He further added that the bench did not summon Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and even did not discuss “irrelevant” questions raised by JIT.