Broadsheet (Vol-I)
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Exhibits of the Inquiry Report (Volume-I) Exhibits of TOR 5(a) t/13 (Page no. of Exhibit NAB no. 31t-AY\ 61,LL.'1.- a e IN THE MATTER OF THE ARBITRATION ACT 1996 AND IN THE MATTER OF AN ARBITRATION CI Arb. Case No. 129120001 BETWEEN: BROADSHEET LLC (IN LIQUIDATION) Claimant - and - THE ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF PAKISTAN AND ITS NATIONAL ACCOUNTABILITY BUREAU Respondents WITNESS STATEMENT OF LT. GENERAL (RTD) SYED MUHAMMAD AMJAD FORMER CHAIRMAN NAB I, LT, GENERAL (RTD) 'S8t•ED MUHAMMAD AMJAD, of House No. 5, Street No. 2, Sector C, Phase No I, Defence Housing Authority, Islamabad. Pakistan WILL SAY as follows: Introduction 1. 1 was the Chairman of the National Accountability Bureau ("NAB") from 16th November th 1999 to 25 September 2000. 1 make this witness statement ip support of the Respondents' defence to the Claimant's claims. 2. The facts and matters referred to in this statement are based on my own personal knowledge or on documents in my possession,or now shown to me. Where they are based on my personal knowledge they are true and where they are based on documents within my possession or now shown to me they are true to the best of my knowledge, information and o (M. UMA 7 RANBHAWA uorp lianonat Accuuniaoffity dureau Islamaoad 3. In the course of this witness statement I will refer to a bundle of documents marked exhibit "SMA-1". References in this statement in the form [Tab-XI are to documents contained in that exhibit. 4. It is necessary for me to note that the events described in this statement took place more than 15 years ago. This statement therefore addresses events that occurred a considerable number of years ago. Accordingly, 1 have prepared this statement to the best of my ability and recollection, assisted by the contemporaneous documentation exhibited to it. Background 5. I was educated at Lawrence College, Murree Hill, Punjab, Pakistan. After passing my Senior Cambridge Exam I joined the Army on the 29 December 1965, as a cadet. During my service with the Army I was awarded BSc (Hons.) by Balochistan University and an MSc (Hons.) by Quaid Az,arn University in the subject War Studies consequent to the successful completion of courses at Command and Staff College in Quetta and Armed Forces War College (now National Defence University) respectively. 6. I spent the remainder of my career serving my country in the Pakistan army. I was promoted through the ranks until, on 13 October 1999, I reached my final rank of Lieutenant General. I retired from the Army on 27 December 2002. Appointment as the Chairman of NAB 7. On 12 October 1999, General Pervez Musharraf led a military coup which resulted in him assuming power as the Chief Executive of Pakistan. At this time, an organization called the Ehtesab Bureau was already in existence in Pakistan ("Ehtesab" is the Urdu word for "accountability" and the Ehtesab Bureau was the predecessor to NAB). However, a core part of the new Government's policy was to pursue anticorruption investigations with renewed vigour. 8. It was around this time that I was approached by either or both Lt. General (Later General) Muhammad Aziz Khan or Lt. General Mehmood Ahmed in relation to whether I would like to take on the role of Chairman in the Ehtesab Bureau, which was soon to become NAB. In this role I would lead the heavy crackdown on persons suspected of corruption. 2 I did not have re ious experience in a role that was similar to the role of the Chairman of NAB, but the Chief Executive General Musharraf wanted me to assume the role of Chairman and I accepted the position. This is how I came to be the Chairman of NAB on 16 November 1999. The National Accountability Bureau was established as the successor to the Ehtesab Bureau. NAB inherited the workload of the Ehtesab Bureau, including their pending investigations. NAB's legal foundation and powers were derived from the Pakistan National Accountability Ordinance No. XVIII of 1999. NAB's role was to investigate and prosecute corrupt persons in public and private sectors and to trace and recover misappropriated assets through voluntary returns, plea bargains or judicial proceedings. 10. Along with the Chairman, the other principal officer at NAB is the Prosecutor General of Accountability (the "PGA"). When considering whom to appoint as the PGA, I was referred to Mr. Farouk Adam Khan ("Mr. Farouk Khan"). At that time, I had never met I Mr. Farouk Khan, but I knew that he was several years my senior and that he had attended Lawrence College. Like myself, he was a member of the alumni society named the Old Gallians. Having joined the Army as a cadet he was, to the best of my knowledge, sent to Sandhurst Military Academy in the UK after completing one term in Pakistan Military •Academy. I was also aware that he had been awarded the Sitara-e-Jurat (Star of Courage — which is equivalent to the Military Cross), for his courageous efforts in the Indo-Pak war of 1965, and that he had been jailed for a number of years around 1974 for his involvement in an unsuccessful military coup against the then-Government, known •as the Attock Conspiracy Case. // 11. I understood that during his time in prison he had studied law and, upon leaving prison, he had entered private practice with Mr. Sardar Khan (although I was unaware as to the extent -‘} of his work as a lawyer in _private practioe)-. -..1 thought that I might be able to work well 4-rr with a person with Mr. Farouk Khan's military experience and background. I therefore invited him to my office for an interview. This was the first time that] had met him, but I considered that he was an appropriate person for the role of PGA and, around November 1999, 1 therefore made the decision to appoint him as such. Negotiations and signing of the Broadsheet Agreement 12. In accordance with the law governing the NAB, we were pressing ahead with our investigations into recovering assets located inside Pakistan from persons who had obtained them as a result of various corrupt practices. We (and the Ehtesab Bureau) had already attached properties in Pakistan of a number of suspects under investigation in Pakistan and we were gearing up to make the first round of arrests of suspects. 13. We were aware that there were significant assets that had been corruptly obtained and therii removed from Pakistan. The next step for NAB was therefore to look for information about suspects' assets, including their properties and money, which had been secreteJ outside of Pakistan and ultimately to repatriate those assets back to Pakistan. Wa-clidaol...— nee 'n rosecuting -isi e p astaLsince l cient legal powers, expertise and experience to do so. Instead, we needed help in discovering assets and funds being held abroad that belonged to Pakistanis and for which there was no plausible explanation for that person having those assets. \ 14. At this time, we could have opted to exclusively obtain this information and assistance by using informal state-to-state mutual legal assistance mechanisms. In fact, on a few occasions throughout my period as the Chairman of NAB we did use this type of state-to- state assistance. For example, we obtained various documents from the British Government and were offered assistance by the US Government. I remember one occasion where, on my return from a meeting in Colorado in April 2000 (which I discuss below), I stopped at London, England. It was around this time that the British Government had been withholding documents from NAB in relation to the cases of Mr. Asif Ali Zardari and Ms. Benazir Bhutto. During my meeting with the British government officials authorization was given for us to obtain a large number of documents which would have been evidence against the suspects. 15. Despite the existence of state-to-state assistance, we considered that this potentially time consuming and cumbersome process would be supplemented by obtaining the assistance of a specialised non-governmental company, who could provide the information and assistance we required more efficiently and speedily. In this context, we expected an were led to believe during the course of our negotiations with Mr. Jerry James and Dr 4 William Pepper that they represented companies that would go beyond the assistance which we could have obtained from other states. Our expectation was that they would effectively provide efficient private investigation services. In around October 1999, I became aware of GSA Investment Corporation Limited ("GSA Investment") and Trouvons Company LLC ("Trouvons"), through their representatives Mr. Tariq Fawad Malik, whom I met, and Mr. Ghazanfar Sadiq Ali. These gentlemen made enquiries as to whether NAB would be interested in hiring a foreign company to assist with the supply of information and the speedy recovery of assets that had been corruptly obtained and secreted outside of Pakistan. From the outset, Mr. Tariq Fawad Malik held himself out to be the in-country representative of Trouvons and Mr. Ghazanfar Sadiq All presented himself as the Chairman of GSA Investment. I attach examples of these letters addressed to me at [Tab-I] (I note that it was the practice of my office that anything that was addressed to me by name came to my staff officer, Brigadier Shujaat Zamir Dar, who would invariably place it on my desk. If a letter was addressed to me in this way, then it was almost certain that I would have read its contents).