ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’ son-in-law Mr. Safdar has been summoned by Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on June 1 for concealing his wife Maryam Safdar’s belongings.
PTI’s Nawabzada Salahuddin Saeed filed against Mr. Safdar with ECP to disqualify him for obscuring his wife’s belongings.
In this application, the request to initiate criminal proceedings against Mr. Safdar was made because he had submitted false and baseless statements. Another request in this application was about voiding and nulling the declared results of NA-21 elections and to order a fresh poll because Salahuddin had lost it against Mr. Safdar.
“Captain (R) Mohammad Safdar with malicious intent to defraud, deceit and mislead public at large as well as the commission and in absolute violation of the mandatory provisions of the Representation of People’s Act 1976 and other laws concealed material facts and did not disclose the assets, properties and offshore companies owned by his spouse Maryam Safdar outside Pakistan in his nomination papers,” said the appeal.
The petition claimed that Mr. Safdar did not provide any specific detail about the properties and assets in the form of statement of assets and liabilities that he submitted on 30th June 2013, 2014 and 2015 to ECP.
ECP said, “And by doing so, he grossly violated sections 12(2)(f), 42A and 80A of the Act. Further, he was not qualified to be elected as a member and secondly after the disclosure of the concealments of the material facts by him, he is liable to be prosecuted under section 94 of the Act and also for causing colossal loss to the national exchequer by receiving perks and privileges being the member of National Assembly of Pakistan.”
Maryam Safdar is the owner of British Virgin Islands-based firms, Nielsen Enterprises Limited and Nescoll Limited, incorporated in 1994 and 1993 – reported by International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ).
The address listed for Nielsen Enterprises is Saroor Palace, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
It is the same place where the Sharif family stayed from 2000 to 2008 after signing a contract with the military ruler Pervez Musharraf of that time.The deed, dated June 2012, described Maryam Safdar as the ‘beneficial owner’ of these firms.
According to the ICIJ, Maryam Safdar and her brother Hussain Nawaz signed a document in June 2007 that was a part of the series of transactions in which Deutsche Bank Geneva lent up to $13.8 million to Nescoll, Nielsen and another company, with their London possessions as guaranteed. The appeal also declared that these properties have been registered to the Sharif family for decades now.
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