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Posted by admin in " RIAZ THE SHAITAN OF PAKISTAN, Asif Zardari Crook Par Excellance on April 23rd, 2013
This anecdote works well for the President of Pakistan:
President walks into a Bank…
President Zardari walks into a local bank in Islamabad to cash a cheque. He is surrounded by his chamchas. He approaches the cashier and says, “Good morning Madam, could you please cash this cheque for me?”
Cashier:
“It would be my pleasure sir. Could you please show me your ID?”
Zardari:
“Truthfully, I did not bring my ID with me as I didn’t think there was any need to. I am President Zardari, the President of the United States of Pakistan !!!!”
Cashier:
“Yes sir, I know who you are, but poor state of the economy and monitoring of the banks because of bank hold-ups, impostors, forgers, money laundering, and bad loans underwriting not to mention requirements of the Article 6, Amendments 62, and 63rd , etc., I must insist on seeing ID.”
Zardari:
“Just ask anyone here at the bank who I am and they will tell you. Everybody knows who I am.”
Cashier:
“I am sorry Mr. President but these are the bank rules and I must follow them.”
Zardari:
“I am urging you, please, to cash this check. I need to buy a gift for Sarah Palin for Valentine’s Day”
Cashier:
“Look Mr. President, here is an example of what we can do. One day, Imran came into one of our bank branches without ID. To prove he was Imran Khan he pulled out his bat and hit a beautiful sixer out of the bank into Raja Rentals Motorcade. With that shot we knew him to be Imran Khan and cashed his check.”
“Another time, Aisam-ul-Haq came into the same place without ID. He pulled out his tennis racquet and made a fabulous shot whereas the tennis ball landed in a coffee cup. With that shot we cashed his check.
So, Mr. President, what can you do to prove that it is you, and only you, as the President of the Pakistan?”
Zardari just stands there thinking, and thinking, and finally says, “Honestly, my mind is a total blank…there is nothing that comes to my mind. I can’t think of a single thing. I have absolutely no idea what to do and I don’t have a clue.”
Cashier:
“That will do, sir. Will that be large or small denomination currency notes, Mr. President?
Posted by Brave_Heart in JUDICIARY on April 23rd, 2013
Justice should be done but only under due process, with balance and equity
“The avaricious are complainants and judges too. Who to appoint counsel, whom to seek justice from?” asked our great poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz at another time, when he too was incarcerated for ‘treason’.
Banay hain ahle hawas muda’ee bhi munsif bhi
Kissay vakil keratin, kis say munsafi chahain?
Good that Faiz Sahib wasn’t also imprisoned for terrorism. Though those too were bad times but not as bad as today. Then Pakistanis had hope; today they are hopeless. Our systems are hurtling towards their natural metamorphosis. Better this way than by force for then they become martyrs and return as zombies to haunt us.
Last week Gen Musharraf appeared before a high court for placing certain judges under house arrest, which is a bailable offence. But the judge attached a terrorism charge to it, denied him bail and ordered police to arrest him. Many lawyers say that he cannot and it was another case of overstepping. Once denied bail it is up to the interior ministry to order police to arrest the accused. The police did not. Musharraf is hardly going to go looking for the police to arrest him.
Since the police didn’t arrest Musharraf, he went home. His security whisked him away because the anti-Musharraf lawyers there were in such a black mood that they feared they might attack him. It is security’s job not to be too careful and take things for granted. But a clearly partisan media that Musharraf the ‘dictator’ made independent of the state but not of the Big Business-Big Politics Combine started the ridiculous rumour that he had scampered. A paper we know well, otherwise fairly balanced called him a ‘runaway’ general. Why would Musharraf voluntarily return to face the music only to scamper? Why without getting the US-UK combine to get cases against him withdrawn or the Saudis to get him a pardon and whisk him away to one of those carbuncles they call ‘palaces’? He came knowing the knives were naked, the cases against him alive and the terrorists ready. The next day this same paper’s headline screamed: “The general submits to justice.” Musharraf returned voluntarily and embraced justice. I find it comical that he has been placed on the Exit Control List whereas he should have been placed on the Entry Control List and saved our powers a lot of confusion.
It was also comical that while Gen Musharraf was in the anti-terrorism court the real terrorists dressed like Dracula were beating up a boy outside. Probably he was pro-Musharraf. It is certainly everyone’s democratic right to protest peacefully but not to cause mayhem. This is what our flag bearers of democracy and liberalism are: if you agree with them you are good; if not they will throttle you. And they resent it when you call them ‘liberal fascists’. The classic definition of fascism is the use of the most progressive rhetoric to further the most retrogressive ends. If they were true democrats and liberals they would not take oaths under provisional constitutional orders to protect their jobs, join unelected cabinets and seek offices of any kind.
Perhaps our hapless powers didn’t seriously expect Musharraf to return and so were not prepared for it. There is no precedent for them to follow, no template to adopt. Caught in utter confusion they are thrashing around like beached whales, unwittingly putting Musharraf’s life at greater risk by dragging him around from home to court to some police establishment to an anti-terrorism court. No one is saying that real justice shouldn’t take its course; of course it must but only under due process with balance and equity. They have no right to present the general on a platter to terrorists and potential killers. If, God forbid, anything happens to Musharraf his blood will be on their hands. With police brandishing fearsome weapons milling around him in the name of security, do they know that there is not another assassin amongst them, like Salman Taseer’s police ‘bodyguard’ shot him in the back like a coward?
This coldblooded, self-confessed assassin has many supporters amongst the ‘lawyers’ who showered flower petals on him and still lionize him. Are terrorist lovers terrorists or is Musharraf who fought them both? These ‘lawyers’ beat up judges, contrary lawyers, journalists, cameramen, photographers and politicians. They are officers of the court but like serial contemnors they repeatedly bring the judiciary into contempt by their hooliganism. They obviously don’t know the law. Judges in an egalitarian state where blind justice prevails equitably and every citizen is equal before the law should have cancelled their licenses and imprisoned them for mayhem and causing grievous bodily harm – or are they scared of them? The chief justice took nary any notice. But I suppose some citizens are more equal then others, what? This state has become Bedlam.
The government instituted this particular case against Musharraf for placing certain judges under house arrest on the instructions of the judiciary. Some of the same judges are still in various courts, including the chief justice, whether they sit on the bench hearing it or not. There is such a thing as influence. Judges are the injured party, complainants and adjudicators all at the same time, as Faiz lamented. Can judges be judges in their own cause? Can anyone? Is it due process? Many of these judges legitimized the 1999 countercoup and took oath under Musharraf’s first PCO. Are they Lilly White clean or are they a danger to Snow White? A partisan judiciary and a partisan media are the last thing a real democracy needs. They become democracy’s death knell.
Try Musharraf certainly in all cases that have been filed against him, no one is saying otherwise, but try all his “aiders, abettors and collaborators” too and only under due process. If the state doesn’t display wisdom, balance and equity and justice doesn’t flow from the courts it will soon start flowing through the barrel of a gun toted either by the army with gloves off or terrorists who don’t know what gloves are. God help us then. No one wants that for then there will be grave injustices. The prosecutors and persecutors of today will become the prosecuted and persecuted of tomorrow. We have dug ourselves into a ditch yet we continue digging. If we don’t stop digging the ditch will become our grave.
If they think that this will prevent future army interventions they could unwittingly hasten it. Just as the lawyers felt humiliated by the treatment meted out to their chief and came out in protest, the army will also feel humiliated with Musharraf’s hounding and could come out in protest in its own way. I would love to hear today’s chatter in the barracks and the messes.
If putting judges under house arrest is terrorism, then what is giving bail to numerous terrorists who went on to commit heinous acts of terrorism? Lack of evidence forsooth such outdated and ineffective laws and procedures must be changed. This was the first point in the 2007 Proclamation of Emergency. Nobody in his right mind could disagree with it. The blood of all those killed by the terrorists is on the hands of those magistrates and judges that gave them bail. So too the responsibility for the pain of those maimed and the lives destroyed of the victims’ families.
They would also try Gen Musharraf for treason under Article 6 for the 2007 emergency but not for the 1999 countercoup which the Supreme Court legitimized and became “aiders, abettors and collaborators”, as did the then president, the initial cabinet, politicians, generals, bureaucrats, editors and journalists who supported it. But in an act of legal terrorism against our collective intelligence, the last parliament of geniuses indemnified them all. If the 1999 countercoup had not been legitimized there is no way the 2007 emergency could have happened. You cannot take cognizance of the effect and not the cause.
Which Article 6 are they going to try Musharraf under, the one that obtained in 1999 and 2007 or the new one changed by the last parliament? The first didn’t contain the word ‘abeyance’, the second one does. The conclusion seems sadly inescapable that the amendment was Musharraf specific for he didn’t impose martial law nor abrogated the constitution but only put some of its articles in abeyance for a time – for 42 days in 2007 during which time he retired from the army. Is this their devious gambit of trapping him while saving their own skins, those who sat in the late parliament courtesy the NRO and pardons? Our late parliament of geniuses should have known that laws are made for dispensing justice, not extracting revenge. If these geniuses think that by indemnifying them the “aiders, abettors and collaborators” of 1999 they are off the hook they have another thought coming. There is manmade justice on earth and Divine Justice perpetually going on in Heaven. The wheels of God grind slowly but they grind exceedingly fine. There is no way that Musharraf can be tried for ‘high treason’ only for the 2007 emergency and not for the 1999 countercoup along with all “aiders, abettors and collaborators”. That justice should not only be done but also be seen to be done is axiomatic; so too impartiality that should not only obtain but also seen to obtain.
The writer is a political analyst. He can be contacted athumayun.gauhar786@gmail.com
Posted by admin in "Jihadi" Outfits of Terrorism, Pakistan-A Nation of Hope, Taliban terrorists on April 22nd, 2013
Talks of talks with the TTP are rife. It seems the ploy of TTP has worked and even old enemies are willing to ‘forgive’ in favour of such talks. Political parties that had sworn earlier to continue this war for which so many had laid down their lives are now thinking otherwise. Well, probably in some manner, the poor souls of the dead have communicated the futility of their lives. Or has this anything to do with the elections being nigh?
TTP’s demands are on the line of demanding the sky and getting away with whatever you get in between. Let’s see how practical their demands might be for the Government: They’ve asked for imposition of Shariah, which would not be conceded to. They’ve asked for complete withdrawal of the Armed Forces from the FATA area, the military would not like to transform FATA into a lawless frontier region where it has no authority and allow the TTP to consolidate their gains. They’ve asked for an end to Drone strikes and severing of ties with Washington. At most, even this demand would only result in raising some hue and cry about the drone attacks, and that is about it.
So if there is nothing real to talk about, why has TTP floated such a call and is now propagating it through their shura and proposing names of guarantors? Essentially, TTP is demanding something which the Government of Pakistan is in no position to concede to. So what does the TTP gain out of it? Actually, TTP is in a no-lose situation with the offer of these talks. If the Government is even willing to talk, this is a win situation for TTP as it provides them recognition. While, if the Government doesn’t accept their demands (which it cannot), the TTP would claim the Government to be a bunch of infidels who do not want Shariah, do not want to end drone strikes against innocent civilians (we know the TTP’s demand to end drone strikes is for their own freedom of action and not out of a love of civilian lives) and who ascribe to the patronage of kuffar. Furthermore, the TTP can get away with offer of a ceasefire (an offer the Military would hardly subscribe to). Not taxing our memories too much, we can still recall the last time a ceasefire accord was struck with the TTP: they consolidated, restructured and came back stronger, fiercer and meaner. Getting some fellow Taliban freed might even come as fringe benefits.
For the past decade, the TTP has waged devilish terror in the name of their extreme ideals. Their murderous campaign is not only restricted to law enforcement agencies as they’ve ruthlessly murdered countless innocent civilians including women and children. They’ve barbarously slaughtered, tortured, maimed, dismembered and mutilated their captives. They’ve targeted people from all walks of life, especially those who dared to raise a voice against their cruel tactics and mala fide intentions. With a sinister design, they’ve razed schools to the ground, destroyed vital infra-structure, converted peaceful areas to lawless frontiers and pushed areas under their control to the dark ages. They’ve harassed, extorted, killed, oppressed and instilled fear in the hearts and mind of the people. They’ve provided an umbrella to any and all anti-state factions and are prompt in accepting any and all terror incidents, providing them a brand name. No longer an organised single entity, they’re a loose conglomerate of a wide array of sub-groups featuring terrorists, extremists, separatists, hate groups, et al.
Living like a king — Sharif’s litany of abuses
News Intelligence Unit
By Kamran Khan
While constantly pleading with expatriate Pakistanis to send their hard-earned dollars to their motherland, former prime minister Nawaz Sharif caused a dent of at least Rs 110 crore to the national exchequer through the 28 foreign trips he undertook after assuming power on February 17, 1997.
Official documents seen by the News Intelligence Unit (NIU) disclosed that about Rs 15 crore were spent from the tax-payers money for Nawaz Sharif’s six Umra trips. For almost each of his foreign visits, Nawaz Sharif used his special Boeing plane that he had promised to return to PIA for commercial use in his famous national agenda speech in June last year.
Almost unbelievably, instead of keeping his promise to return this special aircraft to PIA, Sharif ordered an extravagant US$1.8 million renovation of his aircraft that turned the Boeing into an airborne palace. While reading sermons on austerity to the nation on almost every domestic tour, on this aircraft — on which all the seats were in a first class configuration — Nawaz Sharif and his entourage would always be served a specially-cooked, seven-course meal. PIA’s former chairman Shahid Khaqan Abbasi had, in fact, hired a cook who was familiar with Sharif’s craze for a special type of ‘Gajrela’ (carrot dessert).
While aboard his special plane, Sharif was always served ‘Lassi’ or Badami milk in a Mughal style silver glass by a crew of his choice. Even on domestic flights, Sharif and his men would be served with Perrier water, not available even to first class domestic passengers. The towels he would use on board, had golden embroidery.
Not for a moment, after making his historic promise to the nation in June last year for leaving the palatial prime minister house for a modest residence in Islamabad, did Nawaz Sharif show any intention to leave the prime minister’s palace. On the contrary, soon after that speech, the Prime Minister House received fresh supplies of imported crockery and groceries.
Some of the permanent in-house residents were Sharif’s personal friends, including one Sajjad Shah who used to crack jokes and play songs for him. Sharif’s little-known political mentor Hasan Pirzada, who died last month, always lived at the Prime Minister House. Sources estimate that Pirzada’s daily guest-list to the PM House numbered around 100 people who were always served with meals or snacks.
In the first year of Nawaz Sharif’s second term in power, Hamid Asghar Kidwai of Mehran bank fame, lived and operated from the Prime Minister House until he was appointed Pakistan’s ambassador to Kenya.
While making unending promises of instituting merit in all appointments and selections, Sharif played havoc with the system while issuing personal directives by ordering 30 direct appointments of officers in the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA). While Sharif was ordering these unprecedented direct appointments, his crony Saifur Rahman was seeking strict punishment and disqualification of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto for making direct appointments in Pakistan International Airlines.
Out of these 30 people who were directly appointed on posts ranging from deputy director to inspector in the FIA — without interviews, examination or training — 28 were from Lahore and were all close to the Sharif family or his government. One of the lucky inductees was a nephew of President Rafiq Tarar.
Nawaz Sharif had such an incredible liking for his friends from Lahore or Central Punjab, that not a single non-Central Punjabi was included in his close circle, both at the political or administrative levels in the Prime Minister’s Office. At one point, during his tenure, there was not a single Sindhi-speaking active federal secretary in Islamabad.
For about the first 18 months of Sharif’s second term in office, 41 of the most important appointments in Pakistan were in the hands of individuals who were either from Lahore or Central Punjab, despite the total lack of representation of smaller provinces in State affairs. Sharif stunned even his cabinet by choosing Rafiq Tarar for the post of President.
His activities were almost totally Lahore or Punjab focussed, reflected by the fact that in the first 16 months of power, he had only one overnight stay in Karachi. Conversely, he held an open Kutchery on every Sunday in Lahore, a gesture he never showed in any of the smaller provinces.
Nawaz Sharif, who had always promised a ‘small government’ ended up with no less than 48 people with the status of a federal minister in his cabinet. Ironically, less than fifteen per cent of the people in 49-member cabinet came from the three smaller provinces.
While anti-corruption rhetoric always topped his public speeches, Nawaz Sharif demonstrated tremendous tolerance for corruption as he completely ignored strong evidence laden corruption reports against Liaquat Ali Jatoi and his aides in Karachi.
Sources said that volumes of documents on the corruption of Liaquat Ali Jatoi, his brother Senator Sadaqat Ali Jatoi, the then Sindh health secretary and several of Liaquat’s personal staff members were placed before Nawaz Sharif, but he never ordered any action. These sources said that Nawaz Sharif also ignored evidence that showed Liaquat’s newly discovered business interests in Dubai and London.
Informed official sources said that Nawaz Sharif also ignored reports, even those produced by Shahbaz Sharif, about rampant corruption in the Ehtesab Cell (EC). Shahbaz Sharif and several other cabinet ministers had informed Sharif that Khalid Aziz and Wasim Afzal, Saifur Rahman’s right-hand men in the EC were involved in institutionalised corruption through extortion from Ehtesab victims and manipulation of the Intelligence Bureau’s secret funds.
Sources said that the Ehtesab Cell had issued official departmental cards to one Sarfraz Merchant, involved in several cases of bootlegging and another to Mumtaz Burney, a multi-billionaire former police official who had earlier been sacked from the service for being hand in glove with a notorious drug baron. Sharif was told that these two notorious individuals were serving as middle men between Khalid Aziz, Wasim Afzal and those sought by the EC both here and abroad.
Fully aware that Khawer Zaman and Major General Enayet Niazi were amongst the most honest and upright director generals of the FIA, he booted them out only to be replaced by handpicked cronies such as Major (Retd) Mohammad Mushtaq.
Sources said that while posting Rana Maqbool Ahmed as the Inspector General Police, Sindh, Nawaz Sharif was reminded by his younger brother Shahbaz Sharif about his reputation as one of the most corrupt Punjab police officers and also about his shady past. But Nawaz Sharif not only installed Rana as the IGP, but also acted on his advice to remove Gen. Moinuddin Haider as the Governor Sindh.
In a startling paradox, right at the time when the government media campaign was at its peak about the properties of Benazir Bhutto and Asif Ali Zardari in Britain, particularly Rockwood estate in Surrey, disclosures came to light about the Sharif family’s multi-million pound apartments in London’s posh district of Mayfair.
The apartment No: 16, 16a, 17 and 17a that form the third floor of the Avonfield House in Mayfair is the residential base for Sharif family in London. Records show that all those four apartments were in the name Nescoll Ltd and Nielson Ltd Ansbacher (BVI) Ltd, the two off-shore companies managed by Hans Rudolf Wegmuller of Banque Paribas en Suisse and Urs Specker — the two Swiss nationals alleged to be linked with Sharif’s offshore fortune.
In a knee-jerk reaction last year, Sharif first denied the ownership of those flats. Later, his younger son Hasan Nawaz Sharif said the family had leased only two of the flats, while their spokesmen, including former law minister Khalid Anwer, said that Sharif had actually rented those flats.
NAWAZ SHARIF LISTENS TO HIS MASTER’S VOICE-LIKE HE DID IN KARGIL WAR
But what will count with legal experts is the fact that in their tax returns, none of the Sharif family members had ever showed any foreign ownership of any properties, nor had their tax returns listed payments for any rented apartments abroad.
“With the sale of these Mayfair apartments, you can buy three Rockwood-size properties of Asif Zardari,” commented a source, who added that Sharif’s third party owned properties in Britain may land them in a crisis comparable only with Benazir and Zardari’s cases abroad.
In another example of hypocrisy, while Sharif geared up his government’s campaign against loan defaulters in Pakistan, a High Court in London declared his family a defaulter and ordered them to pay US$ 18.8 million to Al-Towfeek Company and its subsidiary Al-Baraka Islamic Bank as payment for interest and loan they had borrowed for Hudabiya Papers Limited.
The court papers said that the Sharifs refused to make payments on the principle amount and instead directed official action against the Arab company’s business interests in Pakistan. Informed sources said that a few days before the fall of the Nawaz Sharif government on October 12, lawyers representing the Sharif family were busy in hectic behind-the-scenes negotiations with Al-Towfeek executives in London for an out-of-court settlement. These sources said that negotiations in London broke down soon after the army action in Islamabad.
While Nawaz Sharif deployed the entire state machinery and spent millions of dollars from the IB’s secret fund to prove money-laundering charges against Benazir Bhutto and her husband abroad, his government crushed any attempt by the FIA to move the Supreme Court of Pakistan against a decision handed down by the Lahore High Court absolving the Sharif family from money-laundering charges instituted against them by the last PPP government.
FIA officials who had investigated the money-laundering charges against the Sharifs faced termination from service, while the agency was told that even a decision to probe money-laundering was a crime. This particular case is likely to now go to the Supreme Court in the next few weeks.
Posted by admin in " RIAZ THE SHAITAN OF PAKISTAN, BOOT THE SCOUNDRELS OR SHOWDAZ, CIA AGENT NAWAZ SHARIF, EXPATRIATE PAKISTANIS SPEAK-UP, Nawaz Sharif & Kashmiri Biradari, Nawaz Sharif Massive Corruption, NAWAZ SHARIF US & SAUDI AGENT, Nawaz Sharif US Agent, Nawaz Sharif Womanizer on April 21st, 2013
Sharifs own property worth billions in London
* Flagship Investments Ltd’s holdings, Sharif family residence valued at over Rs 2.7 billion
* Company owns real estate in high-end locations
Staff Report
LAHORE: The Sharifs own property worth more than 20 million pounds (Rs 2.7 billion) in and around Central London, Daily Times has learnt. Of these, the Sharif family residence, three flats at 17 Avenfield House, 118 Park Lane alone are worth around 12 million pounds (Rs 1.6 billion).
According to documents available to Daily Times, Flagship Investments Limited, one of the companies run by the Sharif family in London, owns property worth around 10 million pounds in Central London. This does not include the value of the company’s offices. Hasan Nawaz Sharif, the son of PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif, is listed as the director of company on official documents.
Luxury residences: According to its website www.flagshipinvestments.co.uk, the company refurbishes and redevelops luxury residential properties in top end Central London locations. Sought after properties in Mayfair, Knightsbridge, Kensington and Bayswater are their primary focus.
The company’s address listed on the website is Stanhope House, Stanhope Place, Marble Arch – one of the city’s priciest neighbourhoods. However, according to documents seen by Daily Times, the company moved to Tower Bridge House on St Katherine’s Way in November 2007 – a much more upscale property located near the bank of the River Thames.
Properties: The company’s website lists several properties, which include Flat 8, Burwood Place – London W2, worth 700,000 pounds (Rs 96.6 million); Flat 9, Burwood Place – London W2, worth 900,000 pounds (Rs 124.2 million); 10 Duke Mansions, Duke Street, London W1, worth 1,495,000 pounds (Rs 206.31 million); Flat 12a, 118 Park Lane, Mayfair – London SW1, worth 475,000 pounds (Rs 65.55 million); Flat 2, 36 Green Street – London W1, worth 800,000 pounds (Rs 110.4 million); and, 117 Gloucester Place, London W1 (value not listed). The website also features a piece of real estate near the Buckingham Palace, which is valued at around 4,450,000 pounds. In addition, one of the properties listed on the website – 841 Neil Gwynne House, Slone Avenue – is said to be the residence of one Waqar Ahmed, listed on the documents as the Company Secretary of Flagship Investments Limited.
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