File photo of Kaveh Moussavi
Kaveh Moussavi claims he has not been able to find any evidence of corruption by either former premier Nawaz Sharif or any member of his family
Assets recovery firm Broadsheet CEO Kaveh Moussavi has offered a sincere apology to former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, claiming he had been part of a “witch hunt” against the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) leader that had not yielded any evidence of corruption.
In an interview with Geo News journalist Murtaza Ali Shah, Moussavi said that his company had found evidence of “plundered wealth” for several people. “But I can categorically state after virtually 21 years of investigation that not one rupee was related to Mr. Nawaz Sharif or any member of his family. If anyone says otherwise they are lying,” he said.
Broadsheet inked an agreement with the Pervez Musharraf-led government in 1999 to locate and recover wealth allegedly stolen by Nawaz Sharif, Benazir Bhutto and hundreds of Pakistanis from civil, political, business and military backgrounds. Last year, a London High Court ordered the National Accountability Bureau and the Government of Pakistan to pay $30 million to Moussavi as payment for services rendered to NAB by Broadsheet.
According to Moussavi, he had “no doubts” that NAB’s cases against Nawaz were on “political grounds” and he felt compelled to apologize to the PMLN leader. “I have no hesitation in issuing an apology to the former prime minister Nawaz Sharif for having been a part to the sham, the scandalous nonsense masquerading as NAB. It’s a fraud through and through,” he said, adding that “when facts change, I change my views.”
The Broadsheet CEO claimed that his engagements with the incumbent Government of Pakistan had led him to believe that Islamabad had no interest in fighting actual corruption and was only interested in going after Nawaz Sharif and his family. Alleging that he was in touch with Prime Minister Imran Khan through Shipping and Ports Minister Ali Zaidi, he said that they had not even shown “a scintilla of evidence” that they actually wanted to recover stolen money.
“They were interested in using whatever we found as a political capital against their enemies, which I am afraid, was my experience with the NAB right from day one. From day one we insisted that we are not going to be an instrument of witch hunt. Very soon it became clear that the NAB was nothing but an instrument of witch-hunt—a very incompetent and corrupt one,” he said.
“I unhesitatingly tell the people of Pakistan that NAB is nothing other than a racket and it has no interest in fighting corruption,” he told Geo News. “It’s there as a machine of witch-hunt against opponents of powers, whoever that be at one particular time,” he added.