Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf leaders on Sunday assailed the Sharif family and branded them the “Sicilian mafia” after a report which stated that former Gilgit-Baltistan chief justice Rana Shamim’s affidavit against former top judge Mian Saqib Nisar was notarised at the office of PML-N leader Nawaz Sharif.
Taking to Twitter, Minister for Information and Broadcasting Fawad Chaudhry said: “The latest developments have once again exposed the Sharif family to be the Sicilian mafia and how, like a mafia, they possess the power to blackmail the courts and institutions,” he said.
Shamim’s affidavit, whose existence came to light last month in a separate investigative report, accuses Nisar of colluding to deny bails to top PML-N leadership before general elections 2018.
A report, published Sunday, cited unspecified “evidence” and quoted Charles D.Guthrie, the London-based solicitor who had notarised Shamim’s affidavit, as saying that the document was notarised at an office in Stanhope Place in Marble Arch, London, adding that the office belonged to Flagship Developments Limited, of which Sharif’s son Hasan Nawaz is a director and where top PML-N leaders often hold their meetings.
“In the evidence, Guthrie has confirmed three times that Shamim was present at Marble Arch,” the story claims, adding that the notary also implied that Shamim was a close friend of Nawaz’s.
Furthermore, the solicitor indicated that Sharif was also present when Shamim signed the affidavit and took the oath.
Citing the “evidence”, the report said that when asked if “they were like quite cozy when they were in ascension to power and have witnessed systematic marginalization in Modi’s regime.
The report maintained that the world must come forward to save the Dalits from persecution by upper caste Hindus.
there (Sharif’s office),” Guthrie replied: “Very… yeah.” Government officials and members of the ruling PTI, who had long argued that Shamim was operating on PML-N leadership’s order.
