KARACHI, 5 March 2006 — The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) claimed to have found two Sharjah-based offshore companies owned by Benazir Bhutto and her family indicating that the former premier had stashed corruption money in Spain.
The Spanish authorities have initiated criminal proceedings against Benazir and her associates under money laundering laws and frozen the companies’ assets, four bank accounts and a villa in Valencia, said NAB. Under Spanish law, Benazir could face six months in prison and the confiscation of her frozen assets. The High Court of Valencia has appointed an examining magistrate to investigate the allegations.
A Pakistan People’s Party spokesman dismissed the report as victimization of the former prime minister. The two companies — Petroline and Tempo Global Gains — were registered in Sharjah, UAE as Free Zone companies in 2000 and 2001 in the name of Benazir and her family and friends as their members, NAB claimed. It says these companies were used to operate four bank accounts and purchase a villa worth 500,000 euros in Marbella, Spain.
Benazir’s partners in Petroline were Syed Hasn Jari, her nephew, and Abdul Rehman Malik, former FIA official, and her kids Bilawal, Bakhtawar and Aseefa in Tempo Global.
According to NAB, the new information was the result of an “International Mutual Legal Assistance request” it filed with the Spanish government indicating trails of money leading to Spain through Swiss banks. According to NAB, Petroline opened two bank accounts in a Spanish bank named Bancaja, and stashed it with millions of euros from the Union Bank of Switzerland in Zurich and UAE banks Mashriq Bank and Bank Al-Habib AG Zurich.
PPP spokesman Sen. Farhatullah Babar rejected the allegations as a “desperate bid by a desperate regime” to pursue “its vendetta against Ms. Bhutto”.
NAB had been “thrown into a tailspin” by a judgment in favor of the former prime minister by a court in the Isle of Mann last month and concocted the new allegations to continue its “character assassination” of Bhutto, he said.
He said NAB had admitted that it had been investigating a retired three-star general on corruption charges for three years, but not jailed the general for a single day, indicating that the bureau was only victimizing opponents of the establishment.
